OSHAWA —When Jennifer Boudrias walks into the Oshawa’s sprawling General Motors assembly plant later this week, it will be for the last time.

The 38-year-old is part of the fourth generation in her family to build vehicles in the city and she will be the last, as the 100-year history of Oshawa-built cars at GM comes to an end with the final Chevy Silverados and GMC Sierras rolling off the line this week.

“We are hard workers, we’re families and we’re people and we’re all going to have hard times,” she said. “I think there’s some great people in this place and I think we’ve kind of been hard done by this company, I think they really socked it to us.”

Four years ago, she started working at GM as a temporary part-time worker. In August 2018, she was finally hired full-time.

“(I was) pretty much told I had full-time employment — and then to be told I did not have employment, period, anymore,” she said. “It was a slap in the face is how it felt … I cried, I won’t lie to you.”

Since then, the separated mother of three from Clarington, Ont., has downsized her home and car in anticipation of being laid off. She’s had little time to search for a new job since the announcement, as she’s been working full-time and grabbing as many overtime hours as she can to create a cushion.

Boudrias says she will receive just $15,000 in severance from the company.

“It was very sad, there’s very mixed feelings throughout the plant, it’s been a ride,” she said on Monday before heading into her shift. “It’ll be interesting to see these next few days, I know we’re going to have a lot of tears, a lot of stress.”

Unifor national president Jerry Dias, who visited the Oshawa plant on Monday, said the union did everything it could to get GM to reconsider its decision — including ad campaigns, picketing and wildcat strikes — and he credited those efforts for preserving 300 parts manufacturing jobs at the plant.

“There’s a 100-year history here and it’s not lost on us that, somehow, it’s closing on our watch so it’s a personal defeat,” said Dias.

He vowed to push to increase the number of jobs at the plant, and said the potential was there to manufacture vehicles again in Oshawa sometime in the future.

“We may have lost a lot of the jobs but we’ll never lose our voice,” said Dias. “Is it a huge blow? Absolutely. We can’t minimize what’s happening here today because it’s catastrophic, but it’s not going to silence our voice. We’ve maintained the footprint, our commitment is to build the footprint, our commitment is to make sure we push General Motors to the wall because we’re not surrendering this fight.”

In addition to 2,400 jobs at GM, 1,700 Unifor workers at GM feeder plants and suppliers were also impacted by the assembly line shutdown. .

In an emailed statement, GM Canada spokesperson Jennifer Wright focused on the transition to parts manufacturing — including a $170-million investment — and the construction of a test track for advanced technology vehicles.

“We have done everything we can to minimize uncertainty for Oshawa employees by offering jobs in other GM operations, paid retraining, very strong retirement packages or through our efforts to line up 45-plus GTA employers with some 5,000 open jobs,” she said.

Oshawa’s mayor, Dan Carter, said he’s both anxious for workers but also excited for the future.

“I’m anxious because many people have worked here for generations and they didn’t expect this to come about and now they have to transition into a new role in their lives,” he said.

However, Carter said he’s excited for future development opportunities at the plant.

“It covers almost 800 acres in the area, so there’s a lot of great opportunities with this particular plant, it still has components that can play a significant role if you’re going to manufacture,” he said. “I’m pleased to say General Motors has no intention of seeing it idle, they are entertaining and having meetings with many different companies from around the world.”

Carter said any inquiries the city has received about the property have been sent directly to GM.

Rob Osborne is among the workers heading for retirement after working his last shift. The 40-year employee and Oshawa resident began working at GM in 1980 when the plant employed in the neighbourhood of 20,000 people.

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He was touched when workers in Fort Wayne, Ind., who supply the pickup truck cabs for the Oshawa plant, included a message with the last one they sent: “Thanks brothers and sisters at Oshawa … All the best! Eh!”

He said the atmosphere in the plant was sombre.

“The plant’s pretty quiet — people are starting to realize the plant’s going down for good,” he said, adding that his thoughts are with the young families. “They’re just scared because they know (employment insurance) is going to run out, we’ve got young couples that work there, I can’t fathom what they’re going through.”

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