Unifor President Jerry Dias speaks to striking workers at GM's Ingersoll, Ontario, plant.

The ongoing talks between General Motors and Unifor-represented workers at the company’s plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, may be heading south — literally.

The workers at the plant, which produces the hot-selling Chevy Equinox, walked off the line more than four weeks ago and GM is beginning to feel the pinch. GM negotiators told Unifor they had a Plan B in place if the plant’s workers didn’t return to work.

“GM just told us today that they are going to ramp up production in Mexico,” Unifor President Jerry Dias told Reuters. “They have declared war on Canada.”

One of the issues the Ingersoll employees have with GM is that it move production of the GMC Terrain to Mexico, cutting it down to just Equinox. As part of the talks, employees are demanding a commitment of new product for the plant so the threat of shifting the Equinox to Mexico is especially inflammatory.

(GM laying off more employees due to Ingersoll strike. For the story, Click Here.)

The strike has been fueled by union opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The strike by Unifor workers at GM's plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, is in its fourth week and shows no signs of ending.

In a Facebook post after the strike began, Dias observed that if you want to see what a NAFTA-caused race to the bottom looks like, go to Ingersoll, Ontario.

“In that picturesque town west of Toronto, workers at the CAMI automotive plant are on strike over a reasonable proposal that their employer, General Motors of Canada, refuses to accept. – enhanced job security language,” Dias said.

(Click Here for details about Unifor’s demand for new product in Ingersoll.)

Dias said like workers across Canada, “they just want to know that their livelihoods, the stability of their communities and the prospect of a decent future for their children will not be lost to cheaper labor made available by trade deals that failed to take these needs into full consideration.

“The members of Unifor Local 88 have asked General Motors for assurance that the plant, which has won many awards for the quality of their work, will continue to be the lead producer of the top-selling Equinox for the duration of their new agreement,” he said.

Before the strike, which is now the longest at a GM plant in North America in more than two decades, the Ingersoll plant had been building about 4,000 units per week.

(To see more about the negotiations between GM and Unifor, Click Here.)

The Equinox built in Ingersoll is GM’s second most popular vehicle after the Chevrolet Silverado and was redesigned for the 2018 model year to compete more effectively with the Ford Escape, Toyota RAV4 and Honda CRV.