On Thursday morning, more than 300 members of Canada’s Unifor workers’ union and supporters marched in front of GM’s headquarters in Oshawa, Ontario. They held banners that read: “Greedy Motors”, “Loyalty works both ways” and “GM betrayed Canadian taxpayers”, with the Union urging Canadians to boycott vehicles made in Mexico.

The call comes after General Motors said in November that it would wind down the Oshawa plant by the end of this year leading to thousands of job loses, as part of a broader restructuring plan to cut costs and divert investments to electric and autonomous cars.

The protesters goal is to keep the Oshawa plant running, with the facility’s chairman Greg Moffatt telling the Detroit Free Press that if the factory closes, some 5,000 jobs will be at risk between Oshawa and surrounding supplier businesses.

“We’re not going away, we’re going to continue to press General Motors,” he stated.

Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union, is now calling for a boycott on the purchase of Mexican made GM vehicles, unless the automaker keeps production going in Canada.

Upon hearing this, General Motors released a statement claiming that a boycott of Mexico-made automobiles could create collateral damage across the wider Ontario economy, which has over 60 Ontario-based auto parts companies supporting Mexico production.

“The treat of collateral damage for Ontario based auto suppliers, auto dealers and workers is concerning, especially for an Ontario economy that is now open for business, with every opportunity to now benefit from increased trade with Mexico,” stated GM Canada vice president, David Paterson.

The U.S. carmaker also made sure to mention that since 2009, it has reinvested more than $100 billion into Canada through manufacturing, purchased goods and services, plus over $8 billion invested into worker pensions.

Last year in November, GM said that it doesn’t have a viable business case for maintaining production at the Oshawa Assembly plant beyond the end of this year, due to multiple economic factors such as rapid changes in the North American car market, the cancellation of Oshawa products and persistent low utilization at the plant.

The union remains unconvinced

Yet, Unifor leaders won’t be swayed, confirming that even more protests will take place at yet-undisclosed locations, including today as well as during the Detroit Auto Show’s remaining public days.

“One thing that’s for sure, this plant is not going to close,” said Unifor president Jerry Dias while speaking to protesters yesterday afternoon. “GM signed an agreement that said there’d be no closures during the life of this agreement. Our tenacity and our anger is over the fact that they are not living up to their word.”

Dias made sure to state that he would never want Canadian customers to stop buying GM cars in general, seen as how other Canadians still contribute to building some of these models.