Unionized workers at the GM CAMI Assembly plant in Canada have overwhelmingly approved a strike mandate, which comes as Unifor and General Motors gear up for contract negotiations in September.
According to a report from Automotive News, the routine strike-authorization vote allows approximately 1,200 members of Unifor Local 88 to hold a strike once the current three-year contract expires on September 17th, 2024. In regard to specifics, the unionized workers that build the all-electric BrightDrop delivery vans – along with GM Ultium battery modules – voted 97 percent in favor of the strike mandate.
For reference, contract discussions between the two parties are currently scheduled to get under way on September 9th, 2024.
Of course, this development follows a broader series of negotiations last year, when the Canadian union bargained master agreements with General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis. Interestingly, the CAMI facility, which was originally a joint venture between The General and Suzuki, has typically operated on a different cycle than other Unifor plants, thus why contract discussions are just now kicking off.
In the latest round of negotiations, Unifor’s goal is to secure higher wages for workers, as well as returning more of its members to a full-time schedule. As context, the CAMI plant has been dealing with notable downtime struggles throughout the current three-year contract, which included an eight-month retooling effort in 2022 and a battery shortage that brought about a production halt from late 2023 to early 2024. Since earlier this year, the facility has resumed production of the BrightDrop vans, albeit with only a single shift.
With contract discussions looming, GM Canada hasn’t given much insight on how it will handle the union’s priorities, but did remark in an email that the Detroit-based automaker “is committed to working with our Unifor partners to create a new labor contract for CAMI employees.”
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Comment
The OEM’s hope that there will be a strike, as their dealers lots are overflowing with excess inventory.