GM furloughs 1,225 more workers as strike enters 2nd week

General Motors temporarily laid off an additional 1,225 workers in Canada and the United States on Monday as a strike entered its second week.

The actions affect 525 hourly workers at its DMAX engine plant in Moraine, Ohio, a GM spokesman said. DMAX is a joint venture owned 60 percent by GM and 40 percent by Isuzu.

The company also placed another 700 workers on temporary leave at powertrain plant in St. Catharines, Ontario, the spokesman said.

GM had previously furloughed 2,000 workers in Oshawa, Canada who work on cars and trucks.

Last Monday, almost 50,000 US auto workers from 31 plants went on strike in the largest industrial action to hit the carmaker in more than a decade.

Talks between GM and the United Auto Workers union had hit an impasse as they tried to negotiate a replacement agreement when the manufacturer's four-year contract with workers expired.

Besides wages and health care, the talks have focused on GM's use of temporary workers and on the union's efforts to reverse a 2018 decision to shutter five plants in North America.

A spokesman for the UAW said Monday that the two sides had resumed talks.

Picketing workers have been joined in recent days by Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.

© 2019 AFP