There's little more than a weeded-over parking lot outside the former Freightliner truck factory in St. Thomas, a small town about a 30-minute drive south of London, Ont.
Not long ago, the site was a hive of busy autoworkers. But in 2008, German automaker Daimler closed the shop and moved production offshore, part of a $600-million cost-cutting plan that saw 1,400 people thrown out of work. A plumbing component maker has since taken over part of the old Freightliner space, but together with the shuttering of the nearby Ford plant and its 1,600 . . .
