Canadian labor union Unifor will begin its negotiations with the Detroit Big Three this month as the union’s current contract comes up for expiration in September.
Unifor president Jerry Dias told Automotive News Canada this week that the union has its “hands full,” at the moment as it prepares to enter contract negotiations with General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler in September. Preliminary discussions regarding Unifor’s demands will begin this week as executives from the Michigan-based companies meet with Unifor leaders at a hotel in downtown Toronto.
“It’ll be my opportunity to tell them exactly what’s on my mind and how I expect negotiations to proceed and what my drop-dead positions are,” Dias told AN Canada.
Unifor will be looking for the Big Three to commit to future product programs for all of their respective Canadian factories. GM will avoid having to make any commitments at the moment, however, as the only vehicle manufacturing plant it operates in Canada is CAMI Assembly in Ingersoll, Ontario, which runs on a separate contract that does not expire until next year. That said, the union said it is hoping to secure long-term commitments for GM’s St. Catharines Propulsion plant and an extension of the parts manufacturing operation at Oshawa Assembly.
Similar to the Big Three’s collective bargaining process with the UAW, Unifor will choose one of the Big Three to hold discussions with first and typically uses the first agreement as a sort of framework for the remaining two contract negotiations. Unifor is expected to announce which company it plans to enter a dialogue with first on September 8th.
The contract ratification process will also be complicated by the fact that COVID-19 restrictions will prevent Unfior members from voting in-person. AN Canada reports that some local union leaders have already begun the process of getting members to sign up for online contract ratification and strike authorization voting.
Unfior leaders will meet with Big Three execs in Detroit Wednesday morning and afternoon before holding a press conference on the matter at 3 p.m. ET.
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Comments
The big 3 need to look at how well Unifor did with the Federated Co-op refinery lockout situation. That was embarrassing.
I keep thinking about how Unifor picked a needless fight over Equinox production at CAMI and then capitulated when GM called their bluff. I feel bad for Canadian autoworkers – their plants consistently make quality products for all automakers – but Dias picked the wrong fight at the wrong time with the wrong adversary and the result was a considerably weakened union that really has no cards left to play now that it really matters.
The Cami strike was a doomed embarrassment. Good Luck organizing Toyota down the street after that predictable by everyone but Unifor fiasco.
If Jerry Diaz is smart ,he will come forward with two proposals ,for Oshawa Operations #1 would be a proposal worked out with local management to expand small stamping operations and do a lot more listening than in the past ,and #2 Present an electric vehicle proposal for the Oshawa plant serving Canada and Part of the northern U.S. and commitment to peaceful ,quality operations For at least the next ten years to rebuild GM success in the Canadian Market place that they have partially abandoned and Canadians got a long memory of the $10 billion we loaned them in 2008-9 to save them from bankruptcy as they were about to preview the new Comaro built in Oshawa !