Niagara’s GM retirees feel forgotten in new contract
They’re frustrated lost benefits weren’t restored; Unifor rep says diminished membership hurt its chances
The contract Unifor and General Motors ratified this month brought improved wages for workers plus a $109-million company investment in its St. Catharines plant and $1.3 billion for Oshawa.
What it didn’t have, said Fred Dougan, was something for the more than 6,000 Niagara GM retirees who have seen their retirement benefits downgraded over the past decade.
“A lot of retirees are mad about this,” said Dougan, who chairs Unifor Local 199’s retired workers chapter. “Don’t think they’re not, just because their voice is not being heard and it’s not being addressed.
“General Motors is always crying legacy costs, legacy costs. If you look at the corporation, it has made a big comeback since 2010. And there’s
nothing ever given back to the retirees that was taken away from them, in any form or kind.”
Dougan said chairs of other local retiree chapters from GM as well as Ford and Fiat Chrysler are also unhappy and will discuss possible action at a meeting in December.
Under the three-year deal Unifor signed with General Motors, GM retirees who left prior to1994 receive a $500 payment.
But that’s a small benefit for a few retirees and does nothing for the rest, said Dougan, who lives in Welland and worked at GM for 40 years before retiring in 2004.
In the 2008 recession, GM and Chrysler required massive government bailouts to survive.
Dougan said during negotiations two years later, GM’S Canadian retirees lost the cost of living allowance on their pensions. Their benefits were also reduced.
He’s frustrated they’ve never recovered their losses in subsequent negotiations. He blames the national union, which he said sets the direction and leads contract talks.
“They kept saying they’re going to try. And they didn’t promise anything, don’t get me wrong,” said Dougan, who held various positions as a union representative over 32 years.
“But we’ve been through this every set of negotiations since the big reduction. And since the company’s comeback, at each negotiation retirees have stressed that they’ve got to do something and it keeps being unheard.”
The auto industry was a leader in getting cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) for its retirees in the mid-1980s, he said, and the practice was widely adopted by other industries.
By not restoring it, the company and union are turning their backs on the workers who built Canada’s automotive industry.
“One friend of mine, he’s been out since 1994,” he said. “When he retired, from 1994 until it got cut off he gained about $250 a month on his pension just by the cost of living increases.
“He has gone from 2008 until now with nothing. So guess where his pension has gone?”
Dougan credited local union leaders for at least keeping him informed during contract talks, saying “the national union is the one that should have delivered.”
Unifor’s GM national bargaining chair, Tim Mckinnon, said the union pushed for better retiree benefits but it doesn’t have the negotiating power it once did.
Since the mid-1980s, union membership at GM facilities in Canada has gone from close to 40,000 down to about 1,600, including roughly 1,100 in St. Catharines.
“Did we try to get something for our retirees? Absolutely we did. We had 1,600 people left in our bargaining unit, and we’ve got 33,000 retirees,” said Mckinnon, who is also the St. Catharines unit chair.
“It’s tough, because it’s a lot of money.”
Because the Big 3 are global corporations, “getting investment from GM, Ford or Fiat Chrysler Automobiles or anybody is getting more difficult because they have so many places they can put the money.”
As it was, he said, getting nearly $5 billion in new investment from those companies at Ontario plants — including restarting the nearly closed GM facility in Oshawa — “was a big deal.”
Dougan acknowledged retirees’ options are limited, with the contract in place for three years.
“We show up to things the membership doesn’t have time to show up to” to represent union causes, he said.
“We go to picket lines … and we go to protests at MPPS’ offices. When you see protesters at your MPS’ offices, a lot of those are retirees … I can assure you, we’re going to do something.”