Auto strike Talk builds
Canadian side watching
After U.S. workers at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV took the highly unusual step of rejecting a proposed labour agreement last week, Canadian workers are paying close attention to how the drama plays out in the hope of avoiding similar conflict when they begin their own negotiations next year.
It was the first time since 1982 that rank-and-file members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) rejected a national agreement, and indicates that the union’s leadership misjudged the current mood of workers.
“The division between membership and leadership is pretty stark and that takes a long time to rebuild,” said Kristin Dziczek, director of the industry and labour group at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.
UAW president Dennis Williams has not yet said what the union’s next move will be after 65 per cent of its members rejected the tentative four-year deal, but Dziczek said his options are limited.
“I don’t see how they get away from Fiat Chrysler without some form of a strike or putting them on the back burner for a while” while they negotiate with General Motors Co. or Ford Motor Co. instead, she said.
The last strike at the Detroit Three was a two-day affair in 2007 after labour talks with GM broke down.
Canadian autoworkers at the Detroit Three, represented by the Unifor union, will begin their own labour talks next year with the goal of securing a new deal before their contracts expire in mid-September.
Although many of the issues are quite different in the U.S. — the UAW dispute centres on a two-tier wage structure that doesn’t exist in Canada, and there was confusion about the creation of a new health care co-op — there are also similarities, said Jerry Dias, national president of Unifor.
“All of the real growth as it relates to new assembly plants has gone to Mexico, so our American counterparts are facing the same problems we are here in Canada,” Dias said in an interview.
“Ultimately, autoworkers on both sides of the border have gotten hammered.”
Unifor’s goal will be to secure investment in Canada from all three companies — specifically, Dias said he would like to see a new paint shop at Chrysler’s plant in Brampton, Ont.; new product for GM’s plant in Oshawa, Ont.; and investment in Ford’s engine plant in Windsor, Ont.
“For us, our priorities clearly are going to be jobs,” he said.
However, Dziczek said there are also lessons the Canadian union can learn from its American counterpart’s failure to win over its membership.
“Understand and manage expectations from the get-go,” she advised, pointing to the UAW’s failure to effectively communicate with its membership.
“The UAW’s messaging for the last year or so has been, ‘It’s our time.’ … That message resonated with membership and got their expectations raised pretty high,” she said.
In addition, the American union’s summary of the tentative agreement “was very wishy-washy on a few of the key things that people care about,” a fact that left some of the autoworkers confused about what exactly they were voting for, she added.
Finally, the rank and file may have been surprised to see photos of Williams and Fiat Chrysler CE O Sergio Marchionne sharing a friendly hug at the beginning of contract talks.
“Even if the CEO is your best friend, you should say, ‘I’m going to make you out to be a bastard for the next two weeks while I get this thing ratified,’” she said.