Vehicles move along the production line at Ford’s Oakville Assembly Complex in Oakville, Ontario.Aaron Harris/Bloomberg
The union that represents workers at the Canadian plants operated by the Detroit Three auto makers has outlined its key demand for this summer's contract talks: new investment by the companies in Canada.
Workers who assemble vehicles, engines and transmissions for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA), Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. at plants in Southern Ontario want the companies to allocate new products to those plants.
"When we get into bargaining, the No. 1 priority will be maintaining and expanding the footprint of the industry in Canada," said Chris Taylor, chair of the auto council of Unifor, which represents more than 20,000 workers at the three companies.
Each of the three companies operates a facility in Canada the future of which is in doubt.
The union wants those doubts eliminated with new vehicle allocations in the case of GM, investment in a new paint shop at one of two FCA assembly plants and a commitment from Ford to a new engine program or programs in Windsor, Ont.
At GM, the future of two assembly plants and 2,700 jobs at a facility in Oshawa, Ont., as well as employment at an engine and transmission plant in St. Catharines, Ont., hinges on the outcome of the talks.
One assembly plant is scheduled to close next year – although it has survived more than a decade since its closing was announced in 2005. Neither that plant nor the neighbouring one have had new vehicles allocated to them, which puts their future in doubt when production of the vehicles they make now ceases or is transferred elsewhere.
Unifor president Jerry Dias and other senior union executives have been lobbying GM heavily for new investment in Oshawa. Mr. Dias has vowed to force GM to keep the facility open.
The future of an FCA plant in Brampton, Ont., is also shrouded in clouds. The factory needs a new paint shop, and the full-sized cars produced there are not the focus of attention for FCA management as North Americans embrace crossovers and sport utility vehicles and shun passenger cars.
About 2,500 jobs are at stake there, but about 5,500 jobs at a minivan plant in Windsor, Ont., are likely secure after FCA revamped the plant to produce a new minivan that began rolling off assembly lines earlier this year.
The question mark at Ford's Canadian operations centres on its Windsor engine plant, which also needs a new product mandate if its life is to be extended later this decade.
The company's Essex engine plant, also in Windsor, was reopened with new investment after the recession and appears stable.
Ford's remaining assembly plant in Canada, the Oakville Assembly Complex, is pumping out Ford Edge and Flex and Lincoln MKX and MKT crossovers, key vehicles in what is now the largest segment of the North American market.
Along with new investment, Unifor is also seeking improvements in wages and better provisions for newly hired employees, the union's president, Mr. Dias said in a statement.
"The auto industry pays huge benefits to our communities in terms of spinoff jobs, the wages our members spend in their local communities and the taxes they pay that support schools, hospitals and more," he said.
One problem for Unifor is that the three companies agreed to billions of dollars in investment commitments with the United Auto Workers union in the United States last year and see Canada as a high-cost country, despite the decline in the value of the Canadian dollar, which has improved the competitive position of the Canadian factories compared to U.S. plants.