GM Canada has confirmed it will wind down one of its last two lines in Oshawa, starting as early as this fall.

“As previously announced, the Consolidated Line will cease at the end of (the) scheduled lifecycle for the current-generation Impala. This is currently anticipated to occur in June 2013,” the company said in a statement Friday.

The consolidated line currently employs 2,000 people, the company said. That’s about half the company’s workforce in Oshawa.

It’s too early to say how many people will be affected by these “scheduling actions,” the company said.

“Some employees may elect to retire and others will be on indefinite layoff,” the auto maker said in a statement.

The production changes will begin as early as this fall, starting with the third shift, the company said. The second shift will be eliminated in the first three months of the New Year. And by June of 2013, the plant will be closed.

The union representing the workers said it had hoped to overturn the company’s decision to close the plant.

But the company has said repeatedly it has no new product to put in the plant, CAW Local 222 President Chris Buckley told the Star late Thursday night.

“It’ll be devastating for thousands of workers,” Buckley said, adding it’s not just the direct jobs in the plant that are affected but all the spinoff jobs as well.

Calling the decision “short-sighted,” CAW national president Ken Lewenza said, “It is also a betrayal of the tremendous work and sacrifices by our members that went into keeping General Motors afloat in 2008-2009, when the company was on the verge of bankruptcy.

“It appears today that General Motors has a very short memory,” he added.

Lewenza said this latest closure announcement flies in the face of what may actually be the best course of action for the company – using existing capacity well into the future.

The consolidated plant, considered by the company to be outmoded, builds the current model Chevy Impala, an Oshawa mainstay and one of the most popular family cars in the U.S. The same plant handles overflow work on the popular Chevy Equinox.

In December, GM committed to invest $68 million in its newer Flex plant to maintain some Impala production along with 350 jobs in Oshawa.

However, Oshawa would share production of the Impala with GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck plant. As well, some Equinox production would be extended for the first time outside Canada to a reopened U.S. plant.

The moves come as the Canadian Auto Workers enter contract talks this year with all three major auto makers.

Last year, the CAW’s counterpart in the U.S., the United Auto Workers agreed to link pay raises to company performance. Instead of fixed wage increases, the union accepted signing bonuses and profit-sharing incentives, concessions the CAW has unequivocally rejected.

The rising value of the Canadian dollar has also made it tough to compete with the U.S. for new investment, Buckely said.

The latest job losses come on top of the 2,600 jobs lost in 2009 when GM closed its truck plant in Oshawa, and the closure of its last remaining plant in Windsor, where it once employed 7,000 people.

GM had a Canadian workforce of 20,000 people as recently as 2005, but that number has dwindled in wake of its bankruptcy filing two years ago.

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The company received $61.5 billion in bailout money from the U.S., Canadian and Ontario governments in 2009 as it went through bankruptcy protection, with politicians saying it was important to protect manufacturing jobs.

Currently, the Flex line handles the Chevrolet Camaro muscle car and Buick Regal mid-size sedan. In August, GM announced a $185 million investment to add the Cadillac XTS luxury sedan to the Flex line in the first half of 2012, securing 750 jobs.

The company said it originally announced in November 2005 that the consolidated line would cease production in 2008. But due to market demand for the current generation Chevrolet Impala and the subsequent addition of the Equinox, operations continued beyond that date.

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