Unionized General Motors of Canada Co. workers will receive bonus payments of $12,000 during the next four years and 2 per cent wage increases this year and in 2019 in a new contract with the auto maker.
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Unifor is holding votes in three Ontario communities: Oshawa, St. Catharines and Woodstock. The breakdown is 66.5% from members in production and 56.5 per cent by skilled trades, Unifor said on Sunday.
The deal includes $400 million in investments at the Oshawa assembly plant, which will receive product commitments for its flex line. If the GM workers accept the proposed contract, then Unifor will use it as a basis for negotiations with Fiat-Chrysler.
But the key issue for Unifor in talks with GM that led to a deal minutes before a strike deadline last Monday was winning investment to save the assembly plant in Oshawa and secure the future of an the engine and transmission factory in St. Catharines. Unifor’s contract calls for about 70,000 partially assembled pickups a year beginning in early 2018 to be shipped to Oshawa from a GM truck plant in Fort Wayne, Ind., where they will be painted and finished, said a union official who declined to be named. A highlights brochure handed out to employees says the investments include the “implementation of a new flexible assembly module” that will allow GM to “meet unmet demand in a critical market segment”.
The Cadillac XTS passenger vehicle, which was previously scheduled to go out of production in 2018, will receive an upgrade and its life will be extended. Auto production has flowed out of Canada in the years since the financial downturn, as Detroit’s auto makers have added jobs and equipment in the US and Mexico.
Revised pension plan for new hires: All Unifor members hired or converted to full-time status after ratification of the contract will join a new defined contribution pension plan instead of a traditional pension, or defined benefit plan. Workers will be required to contribute four per cent of their paycheque, which GM will match. It is also notable that Unifor achieved its other goals, which was to win a raise for its members and changes to the 10-year wage progression for newly hired workers.
Temporary workers will immediately be placed onto the same 10-year wage ladder new hires are on. Under the old contract they did not receive their first wage increases until they had completed three years of employment. It includes wage increases, signing bonuses and lump sum payments.
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The ratification, whose results have not yet been announced, is expected to affect some 16,000 Unifor workers with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Ford Motor Co, whose contracts also are up for negotiation.
