A components shortage due to the United Auto Workers’ strike against General Motors in the United States has resulted in a GM plant in Mexico being closed. GM reports its has shut down its pickup truck and transmission factories in Silao, Mexico. The Associated Press quotes GM Spokesperson Dan Flores as saying that production at the factories ended Tuesday morning, affecting 6,000 workers. This marks the third North American plant outside of the United States that GM has closed due to the strike action against the company. GM had already been forced to close a Mexican engine plant and an assembly plant in Canada due to the strike.

As of late last week, GM had over 80 days of Silverado inventory on hand at dealers. The company had upped production and increased dealer inventory ahead of the strike which is now entering the middle of its third week. So far, workers at the GM plants who are on strike have missed on paycheck. They are not missing their GM 97% subsidized health benefits. GM is continuing to pay for workers’ health insurance despite them not being on the job. The United Auto Workers opted to pay themselves $250 each from the Union’s nearly $1 billion in strike pay fund yesterday. The money is not subject to federal income tax.

Trucks, and the American jobs creating them, are protected by a 25% import duty in the United States and have been since the Johnson Administration in the 1960s. However, Canada and Mexico are excluded from that tariff as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Photo courtesy of GM is for representation purposes only.