ITAR Compliance Forces General Motors Canada to Pay
September 2007
Maybe if you comply with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you can get sued for doing so…
General Motors of Canada Limited was forced to pay an undisclosed amount of money to six workers who complained of discrimination based on their citizenship and place of origin. The six unionized workers were all Canadian citizens or landed immigrants who also held citizenships from other countries. They all worked in a division of GM that manufactured military vehicles. GM Canada used US defense articles and technical data controlled by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to produce these vehicles.
The problem is that the ITAR prohibited GM Canada from allowing the US defense articles and data to be accessed by Canadian landed immigrants (“permanent residents”) or Canadian duals nationals whose original or second country of nationality was from a country considered problematic by the ITAR. Because of this, the six workers who had citizenships in other problem countries were called into a meeting by General Motors and sent home with pay because they did not have the proper clearance to work on the U.S. vehicles from the U.S. State Department.
The six employees eventually were permitted to return to work, but General Motors did not apply for the US State Department for them to legally work on the military vehicles, so GM assigned them to alternative duties.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission brought the workers and General Motors together where they reached a settlement in July 2007. General Motors agreed to pay money to each of the six employees who had been forced to perform alternate duties because of the lack of US State Department approval.
