About 3,500 hourly workers in the United States and Canada will be laid off starting this summer when GM carries out a massive production cut announced earlier this week.

The automaker will build 140,000 fewer trucks and SUVs in the second half of the year than initially planned -- a cut that's needed even though GM built 100,000 fewer vehicles in the first quarter because of the American Axle strike. The company said it will cut shifts but not close factories.

"This latest move marks another step by GM to trim its higher-cost union work force and even raises the prospects of increasing buyout opportunities from fearful employees," CSM Worldwide analysts Joe Langley and Mike Jackson wrote in a research note.

Then there's the ongoing strike at American Axle which might be thawing, though the result doesn't look particularly pretty.  We've gone round and round here on this site talking about potential deals and competitive wage structures.  Simply reducing compensation rates across the board to bring workers in line with their domestic (US) competition doesn't look like an option anymore, though.  According to the Ivory Tower:

A settlement potentially would shed American Axle's national UAW contract, replacing it with individual agreements for the surviving plants, said people briefed on the talks...

Forging plants in Detroit and Tonawanda, N.Y., near Buffalo are negotiating deals that would close those factories, according to people familiar with the talks. It is unclear what would be offered to those workers in the event of a closure.

Worth noting that there's no talk of American Axle shifting those jobs out of the Country.  They're just going to disappear.  So sure, Hillary Clinton's NAFTA and CAFTA may give some folks the SHAFTA but not these folks.  

News of the potential closings wasn't exactly expected, either.  Union negotiators have been keeping their members apprised during talks these last couple of months and it looks like this news blindsided them.  Meaning it may not have been officially a part of any preliminary offer from American Axle, and they've laid several on the table.

Browsing through the comments section after that Tower article paints a picture of a union membership that's been blindsided and looks plenty unhappy with their union "leadership."  Then again, this could have been in the cards all along with UAW shepherds simply keeping it from their flock.  But they wouldn't do that, would they?