GM's Mexican factories，罢工争议点

The talks to resolve the longest auto industry strike in decades have taken place in downtown Detroit for 24 straight days. But the biggest issue on the table now revolves around what happens in Mexico.

The United Auto Workers union, whose nearly 50,000 members have been on strike against General Motors since Sept. 16, has previously made shifting work back from plants in Mexico to plants in the United States a major issue in the talks. But it is a bigger factor this year, after GM announced plans to close four US plants. While many other matters have been resolved, there remains a huge chasm between the two on that point.

"We have made it clear that there is no job security for us when GM products are made in other countries for the purpose of selling them here in the USA," the UAW's chief negotiator wrote. "We believe that the vehicles GM sells here should be built here. We don't understand GM's opposition to this proposition. Building more world-class vehicles at our UAW-GM locations is the best solution for our members, our families, our communities and GM."

GM said the overwhelming majority of the cars it sells in the US are built in the US. While it doesn't provide the number of cars built in Mexico, the company points out that it has four factories in Mexico, compared to 29 in the United States -- not counting the four it is planning to close. It also said it has proposed "solutions" for the Hamtramck and Lordstown plants.

The vehicles GM is building in Mexico are among its best selling - the Silverado and Sierra pickups, the Blazer, Equinox, Terrain and Trax SUVs. Of those vehicles, only the Silverado and Sierra are also made at US plants. Those are already working around the clock on three shifts turning out pickups. The Terrain and Blazer are built only in Mexico. The Trax is built in Mexico and South Korea, and the Equinox is built in Mexico and Canada.

Most of those vehicles are early in their product life cycle, such as the Blazer, which is in its first year of production. Typically if a vehicle is going to be shifted from one plant to another, it's when there is a major design change after at least five or more years.

"It cost billions of dollars to put them [in Mexico], and it'd cost billions of dollar to bring them back," said Dziczek. "GM will be loath to move anything back that they just spent money to put there."