GM workers approve four-year contract
Unionized workers at General Motors of Canada Ltd. have voted in favour of a contract that will i nvest $ 554 million in the automaker’s Canadian operations and give production workers $ 19,000 in additional payments over the life of the four-year contract.
The deal was approved by 64.7 per cent of GM Canada’s 3,900 hourly workers, with 66.5 per cent of production workers and 56.5 per cent of skilled trades workers voting in favour.
Unifor will now turn its attention to negotiations with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles ( FCA) Canada Inc., using the GM agreement as a model. If an agreement isn’t reached by midnight on Oct. 10, workers there will be in a position to strike.
“In the negotiations with GM, the union set clear objectives which we reached, including our top priority to secure investment and product for our members and the future of the auto industry,” Unifor president Jerry Dias said in a statement.
“With FiatChrysler and Ford we will accept nothing less.”
The GM deal includes a $ 6,000 signing bonus plus another $ 6,000 in lumpsum payments that will be paid out in $ 2,000 increments in years two, three and four of the contract. In addition, workers at GM Canada will receive a twoper- cent salary i ncrease upon ratification and another two- percent increase in 2019, according to highlights of the agreement released Sunday by Unifor.
In total, a typical full-time production- line worker will make $19,063 extra over the life of the contract.
GM has also agreed to invest $554 million in its three Canadian facilities, which include an assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont., an engine plant in St. Catharines, Ont., and a parts- distribution facility in Woodstock, Ont.
Securing Oshawa’s future was the key objective for the union. One of the plant’s two assembly lines will shut down as planned next year but the other flex line will have its life extended beyond 2019 as a result of the tentative agreement.
GM will spend $ 400 million to upgrade the flex line and is expected to create new products, although it has not been revealed which vehicles it will choose.
In St. Catharines, GM will spend $ 150 million to extend the life of the existing engine module built there, bring in a new, more fuel- efficient version of that engine and introduce a nextgeneration transmission. The parts- distribution centre in Woodstock will receive a $4-million investment.
The biggest concession in the new contract is a stipulation that new hires will belong to a defined- contribution pension plan instead of the existing defined- benefit plan. However, Dias said it “barely got raised” by workers during ratification meetings on Sunday.
Workers will be required to contribute four per cent of their paycheque, which GM will match. If workers choose to add an additional one per cent, GM will contribute another two per cent.
The contract also includes a $1,500 lump-sum payment for former workers who retired before 1987.