(The Montreal Gazette published the following story by Nicolas Van Praet on its website on September 24.)
MONTREAL — Alstom Canada Inc. rolled back its Montreal train-making operations even further yesterday, announcing more layoffs and confirming the possible end of its days in Point St. Charles.
The move comes after the company did not win a $60-million contract last week to build commuter-rail cars for the Agence Métropolitaine de Transport. Bombardier won the contract.
It also occurs amid financial turmoil for its French-based parent, Alstom SA, which is fighting to regain the trust of clients after securing a bailout package it hopes will help avert a bankruptcy. Shares in the engineering company plunged 10 per cent yesterday over worries the rescue package won’t be enough to carry Alstom forward.
Alstom Canada said it will cut 20 of its remaining 50 or so full-time workers at its plant in Point St. Charles. Hope appears lost for another 400 workers previously laid off who were on a list to be recalled.
“We’re very disappointed,” said Patrick Fragman, Alstom Canada’s general manager, at a hastily called news conference.
“But the steps we’re taking today are the only ones that will allow Alstom to remain in Quebec.”
As The Gazette reported on Aug. 6, the company is in talks to determine whether to move its plant from Point St. Charles to another location in the Montreal region. It rents about 500,000 square feet of space from Canadian National Railway Co. and uses barely a quarter of that area.
Bit by bit, the skin has been coming off Alstom’s Montreal train-building business.
Since it started building train locomotives here in 1996, Alstom has steadily shed workers as it desperately tried to reinvent itself as a maker of passenger rail equipment.
But when it didn’t win the rail deal last week, a contract Alstom executives described as do-or-die, the company was dealt a big financial and psychological blow. The deal would have cut its dependence on work now being shifted over from Alstom’s Rolling Stock Americas division.
AMT president Florence Junca-Adenot said Bombardier’s proposal made the most sense in terms of price and quality. She denied Alstom was rebuffed because of its precarious financial situation.
Fragman remained surprisingly upbeat yesterday in the face of the gloom. Grinning for the TV cameras, he reaffirmed several times his belief that the company has a train-making future in Quebec.
“The market turns around very fast, we’ve seen that in the past. I’m hoping for better conditions soon.”
The company has its sights on other contracts. It is one of four final bidders to build equipment for a rail link between Toronto’s Pearson airport and that city’s downtown core. But one consultant pointed out that the more the company shrinks its Canadian presence, the less likely it is to be favoured over a domestic rival like Bombardier.