Canadian trade union Unifor, which represents workers across multiple sectors and currently boasts more than 300,000 members, has announced the start of contract negotiations with GM and the other “Big Three” or “Detroit Three” automakers as of August 10th.
Unifor official James Stewart, who bears the title of Stellantis Master Bargaining Chair, zeroed in on the core issue of the negotiations when he said “autoworkers cannot be left behind during the retooling period our plants will go through as we transition to electric vehicle manufacturing.”
Unifor President Lana Payne and other Unifor personnel, via Unifor
Lana Payne, Unifor National President, said that Canadian automotive sector employees are ready to do their part in transforming vehicle manufacture in Canada, but also “need a contract that delivers the stability, fairness, and respect they are owed for the monumental task ahead” at the time of what she called “a historic affordability crisis.”
The switch to EV manufacture is also a major sore spot for the United Auto Workers union or UAW. The UAW is currently seeking the unionization of workers at battery plants operated by GM and LG Energy Solution Ultium Cells LLC, where employees are paid much less than at traditional car factories, among other demands. Unifor sounds a similar note in its freshly-launched campaign.
Lana Payne specifically calls for “strong pensions, better wages and adequate protection from the effects of transition to electric vehicle production.” The negotiating chair specializing in dealing with GM, Jason Gale, echoed her statements and expanded on them, stating the “path to full pay must be shorter and autoworkers’ wages should reflect the hard work, skills, and dedication they show every single day.”
Unifor President Lana Payne, via Unifor
Canadian workers have experienced work and pay disruptions along with rolling layoffs both during and after The General’s retooling of the GM CAMI Assembly plant in Ontario, Canada to produce the all-electric BrightDrop Zevo 600 light commercial EV van. The retooling of the plant took only seven months, one of the fastest ever, but led to a nearly year-long layoff for worker there.
Subsequently, an EV battery shortage has caused CAMI Assembly to run well under capacity. Since the retooling, only one shift of employees out of three has been given work at any one time, with the other two laid off using a rotation system that sees each shift working two weeks before four weeks of layoff.
While the plant recently resumed production after a two-week total halt, it is still using the work-and-layoff rotation with battery supply continuing to be low. Some workers have been forced to use food banks with Employment Insurance already used up by the retooling and GM back pay proving difficult to obtain in some cases.
Unifor was formed in 2013 when the Canadian Auto Workers union and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada joined to form a single general union. About 18,000 of its total 310,000 membership work for the Detroit Three and are covered by the current bargaining, which has a deadline of September 18th to reach a resolution.
The Canadian union launched its talks at a time when GM, Ford, and Stellantis are already under strong pressure from the UAW in contract negotiations.
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Comments
It will be interesting to see what union shoots themselves in the foot worse. Mexico, non union states and the rest of the world are excited to have these new jobs coming their way in the next few decades as the unions price themselves out of jobs.
Anybody with economic sense realizes that for every 1 auto job the spin off is 10 in direct and indirect alignment . So yeah move the jobs to Mexico and kiss your economy bye bye . I guess you assume that auto manufacturing will lessen the price of cars because of the labour costs associated with unskilled labour , too funny . And the transition from current to future movement isn’t a overnite occurrence, manufacturers know that the landscape of workforce has changed and they also have to adjust accordingly.
Currently manufacturing is being scaled back from overseas because of what happened during the pandemic. Non- union labor has always been a quiet threat to the union labor force but yet during the 80’s and 90’s when there were far more low skilled workers required for a vehicle and substantially better paid, the company still made plenty of profits. So this argument of GM pricing themselves out of the market is a silly argument considering the cost to build a vehicle is impacted so little by labor costs. They could triple operators wages and you MIGHT see an increase of maybe 10% of the vehicle price to cover those costs.
Just from what the CCA portion of the oshawa plant does pays for current salaries. Did none of you see the “record profits” from last quarter?
When the overseas chip shortage happened they hiked up vehicle prices and wait times. The prices are the same and oshawa is the first plant to start making all its own chips etc so that they don’t have to rely on overseas.
The men and women working in those plants should be able to afford to live, at least. They should also be able to afford what they build.
Do your research before downtalking hard working Canadians who are just trying to live.
I’m unaware of Oshawa making their own “chips” gm does not currently make their own chips as far as I’m aware. They still source it from a supplier.