Standing alongside and sharing a microphone with Stellantis COO North America Mark Stewart on the Brampton Assembly Plant, Unifor President Lana Payne signalled that Canada’s auto union will take a special strategy to this summer season’s contract negotiations than its union counterpart within the United States.
Payne and Stewart collectively toured the Toronto-area plant, which produces the Chrysler 300, and the Dodge Charger and Challenger muscle vehicles on July 21, shaking palms with manufacturing employees and posing for footage.
The occasion got here three weeks earlier than Unifor formally launches contract negotiations with Stellantis, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors, and its chummy ambiance was in stark distinction with current powerful discuss from the United Auto Workers within the United States. UAW President Shawn Fain, tossed apart a decades-old handshake custom with Detroit Three CEOs final week, saying he’d shake palms with the corporate executives after they “come to the table with a deal that reflects the needs of the workers who make this industry run.” The stance is per the adversarial tone Fain set this spring when he described bargaining as a “war” in opposition to employers who’re unwilling to present union members their “fair share.”
Payne advised reporters in Brampton that she respects the “great job” the UAW is doing representing its members, however Unifor is a special union and intends to take a special strategy.
“Unifor has its own job to do. We have our own members to represent. We have a different situation in Canada. … We’re going to chart our own course in this bargaining, and we’ll chart our own course as the union that we are.”
Unifor represents about 8,200 hourly employees at Stellantis crops in Canada, 5,700 at Ford and 5,800 at GM.
In 2020, the union took the weird step of negotiating three- versus four-year contracts with the three automakers, which put collective agreements for auto employees in each Canada and the United States on monitor to run out concurrently for the primary time since 1999.
On July 21, Payne stated the choice to reset the clock on bargaining again in 2020 was “not necessarily” to have talks overlap with the UAW, however to get in forward of the electrical automobile transition.
“We actually wanted to get to the bargaining table before the retooling of our plants happens, and to give us a chance to have another kick at the can and make sure that we were getting everything in place that we knew needed to be in place.”
Unifor has pointed to larger wages, improved pensions, and help throughout the retooling course of as a number of of its key priorities for this spherical of bargaining.
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Payne stated the union additionally hopes to “wiggle” extra funding {dollars} out of Stellantis so as to add to the red-hot Canadian auto trade’s operating tally of current spending.
Stewart supplied few specifics, however stated Stellantis is raring to get to the bargaining desk, and “absolutely” prepared to interact on union priorities corresponding to larger wages for employees dealing with steep ranges of inflation.
“We all need to be successful together, and that means everybody continuing to have great wages, great benefits and a great place to work.”
Stewart additionally pointed to the current deadlock with the federal authorities over the corporate’s three way partnership battery cell plant in Windsor, Ont. as a constructing block for Stellantis’ relationship with Unifor.
He credited the union for lending help with the intergovernmental subsidy deal that allowed building on the plant to restart, and stated it’s simply the most recent instance of how the corporate and union are “finding ways through hurdles together.”
“We’ll get it done at the [bargaining] table as well.”
Source: canada.autonews.com
