GM putting $109 million into St. Catharines plant
Tentative three-year deal with Unifor secures pay raises, manufacture of engines, transmissions for new assembly line
General Motors will invest $109 million in its St. Catharines propulsion plant and use that site to manufacture engines and transmissions for a new assembly line in Oshawa, under a tentative three-year deal reached Thursday with Unifor.
“There was a genuine concern that up to half of our members (at St. Catharines) would be laid off in the life of this agreement,” said union president Jerry Dias.
“There is no question that what we have negotiated has stabilized the plant. Do I expect any of our members will be laid off in the life of the agreement? Absolutely not. So this is going to have a huge impact.”
During a news conference in Toronto, the St. Catharines news was overshadowed by word GM will invest as much as $1.3 billion and hire between 1,400 and 1,700 workers to restart its Oshawa assembly operation for heavy-duty and light-duty pickup trucks.
GM Canada president Scott Bell confirmed the company will also invest $500,000 at its Woodstock parts distribution centre.
Tim McKinnon, Local 199 plant chair for St. Catharines and Unifor’s GM national bargaining chair, said he expects the agreement will also lead to some hiring in St. Catharines, possibly 100 to start. Approximately 1,200 people work there now.
Negotiations between GM and the union lasted nearly two weeks. A strike deadline set for midnight Nov. 4was extended a few hours before the tentative deal was reached.
McKinnon said the St. Catharines plant situation was the reason talks ran late.
“It was a tough go. It was hard to find solutions,” he said, adding GM initially didn’t have any new product to allocate here “and we spent a lot of time arguing over that.”
Going into negotiations, the St. Catharines plant faced losing up to half its approximately 1,200 unionized workers because some of the models it built for are due to be eliminated.
With the new work supplying Oshawa and other operations in Mexico and South America, McKinnon said “I am very cautiously optimistic that there will be something (new) coming into St. Catharines before we get to the table again in 2023.”
Dias said retooling at the St. Catharines plant would likely “start very shortly because GM needs the volume, and the whole issue of the transmission for the Corvette, that definitely will be starting immediately.”
He expected GM’s investment will have “an incredible impact on the economy of St. Catharines.”
St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik called it “great news” for the city.
“It is also a strong signal that St. Catharines is an important part of a global company that continues to grow and adapt in a rapidly changing auto industry,” Sendzik said.
Unifor previously signed contracts with the other Big 3 automakers, Ford Canada and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
The most recent deal, with Fiat Chrysler, calls for roughly a nine per cent pay raise over three years, plus a $ 7,250- signing bonus. McKinnon said the tentative deal with GM is “very similar.” He said the re-emergence of assembly in Oshawa is vital for St. Catharines.
The last car rolled off the line there in 2019, followed by thousands of layoffs that left only about 300 workers putting out aftermarket parts.
“One, we supply them — we’re the sole supplier for their light-duty truck engines,” he said. “And … we went third (in negotiations after Ford and Fiat Chrysler) because we’re so small.
“The fact we’re going to get bigger again is a good thing in the grand scheme of things for everyone that works for GM.”
The union will hold a ratification vote for members Sunday, doing it online through a Zoom meeting for the first time.