On Friday, Caterpillar’s Progress Rail Services said it was closing its 62-year-old Electro-Motive Canada operation in London, Ontario, the subject of a union lock out since the beginning of the year. Now, it looks like some of the plant’s 475 jobs could be headed for Indiana, reports the Globe and Mail in Toronto. 
Caterpillar held a jobs fair in Muncie, Ind., over the weekend, that drew thousands of applicants. Some job seekers showed up at 4 a.m., five hours before the company began letting people in the door. In all, about 3,000 people turned out, according to the Muncie Free Press.
The Muncie plant, which assembles locomotives, underwent a $50 million renovation last year and became the first new locomotive plant in the United States in years.
The New Year’s lock out of the Canadian Auto Workers union came after the CAW refused to accept deep concessions that would have cut hourly pay in half.
The move comes just as Indiana is implementing its new Right to Work law, signed by Gov. Mitch Daniels last week. The law prevents unions from charging mandatory dues, even if they represent a workforce.
In explaining the shutdown, Billy Ainsworth, the CEO of Progress Rail, said in a letter to employees that all the company’s facilities “must achieve competitive costs, quality and operating flexibility to compete and win in the global marketplace, and expectations at the London plant were no different.”