Unifor Picks GM as Target Company as Clock Ticks Towards Potential Strike

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

The union representing Detroit Three autoworkers in Canada has chosen General Motors as its target company as contract negotiations get serious.

Agreements reached between Unifor and GM will set the pattern for negotiations with Ford and Fiat Chrysler. However, the potential closure of GM’s Oshawa assembly plant means a strike is almost inevitable if the automaker doesn’t reverse course and offer up a big investment.

Each Detroit Three automaker has an endangered operation north of the border, including Ford’s Windsor engine plant and, to a lesser degree, FCA’s Brampton assembly plant (which builds the company’s rear-drive cars). Oshawa’s position is the most perilous, so it’s no shock Unifor announced it will go after GM for commitments first.

Contracts will all three automakers expire on September 19. The union membership, which numbers 23,050, has already voted overwhelmingly for a strike mandate. Once members ratify an agreement with the target company, bargaining moves to the second and third company.

“Our demand is clear, invest today to build a future for tomorrow,” Unifor president Jerry Dias told Canadian media today.

Recently, Dias called the negotiations the “most important auto contract talks in a generation.” He promises “no deals with any of the companies without commitments from each of them for investments in Canada.”

In late July, the Windsor Star quoted an unnamed GM Canada executive who claims that Oshawa’s Consolidated Line is due to close next year. That assembly line manufactures Chevrolet Equinox crossovers in an overflow capacity. The same executive said the closure of the entire plant is not a “foregone conclusion.”

Oshawa Assembly employs about 2,400 autoworkers building the Buick Regal and Cadillac XTS, in addition to overflow from GM’s CAMI facility in Ingersoll, Ontario. In recent years, Oshawa lost its truck plant as well as the Chevrolet Camaro. Existing models produced in Oshawa could easily be sent elsewhere.

Last week, Unifor released an independent study showing the Detroit Three’s $26 billion economic impact on the Canadian economy.

“Policy makers and the public need to understand what’s at stake here,” Dias said in a statement.

In the lead-up to contract negotiations, GM Canada refused to commit to the Oshawa plant’s survival, though it did announce the province-wide hiring of 700 new engineers. That announcement raised eyebrows, with many believing it was meant to soften a looming blow to the company’s Canadian workforce.

[Image: OFL Communications Department (Flickr) [ CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • ToddAtlasF1 ToddAtlasF1 on Sep 06, 2016

    I can't think of two adversaries who deserve each other more. If Unifor plays their cards right, GM will pull out of Canada and cause Unifor to sabotage themselves with Ford and Fiat. Do any of the usual suicide apologists think targeting GM to set terms for Ford and Fiat was the right thing to do? It's a very subtle brand of genius at best.

  • Dave M. Dave M. on Sep 07, 2016

    No problem Unifor. You and the UAW are my extended family's #2 reason for not buying a NA built domestic car. Of course reason #1 is quality, reliability and retained value. There's plenty of NA-made high quality cars that don't have your fingerprints on them. We'll continue to go there.

  • Ronin It's one thing to stay tried and true to loyal past customers; you'll ensure a stream of revenue from your installed base- maybe every several years or so.It's another to attract net-new customers, who are dazzled by so many other attractive offerings that have more cargo capacity than that high-floored 4-Runner bed, and are not so scrunched in scrunchy front seats.Like with the FJ Cruiser: don't bother to update it, thereby saving money while explaining customers like it that way, all the way into oblivion. Not recognizing some customers like to actually have right rear visibility in their SUVs.
  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
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