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General Motors will shut down its Cami auto assembly plant in Ingersoll for one week this fall, maybe longer, amid a weaker sales outlook for the popular Equinox SUV built there.

The surprise shutdown – the first down week at the plant since 2008, and one that will idle 2,000 of its 2,800 workers in a temporary layoff – caught the union at Cami off-guard.

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But there also was relief that workers dodged a bullet, with General Motors also announcing the elimination of an entire shift of workers at a Mexican factory that also makes the Equinox.

“It shows the quality that we build here in Canada,” Joe Graves, president of Unifor Local 88 at the Cami plant, said Thursday.

Unscheduled shutdowns, with temporary layoffs, were more common in the auto industry before the 2008 economic crisis, from which a leaner new industry emerged including in Southwestern Ontario.

Cami, with three shifts of around the clock production and a strong-selling product, has been a stalwart in that rebound.