Strike deadline looms at FCA
Union hopeful tentative agreement will be reached before midnight
With just hours to go before a midnight strike deadline, the master bargaining committee for Unifor workers at FCA reports "little progress."
The two sides are meeting in Toronto, where a tentatively planned press conference scheduled for 3 p.m. Wednesday was cancelled.
The union says they have a strong strike mandate and the negotiations follow what Unifor's national president Jerry Dias calls a home run deal that was struck with Ford Motor Company last month.
The union is trying to achieve the same pattern agreement with FCA that it reached with Ford.
Union says FCA pushing back on wages
This week started with a post from Unifor Local 444 saying that talks were "not quite where we feel we should be."
In the latest national bargaining update posted online Unifor said "FCA continues to challenge the union on key elements of the pattern agreement including items relating to wages, lump sumps, and health care benefits."
"The committees remain hopeful that we will reach a tentative settlement by the deadline," reads the post.
"However if FCA continues to push back on the pattern and refuses to deliver concrete investment commitments the likelihood of job action grows."
FCA spokesperson Lou Ann Gosselin wrote CBC News that the company can't comment on the talks, but offered this quote in an email.
"We are committed to reaching an agreement that will allow us to continue investing in our future and create opportunities for our employees, their families and the communities where we live and work," wrote Gosselin.
The workers at the Windsor Assembly Plant are on layoff this week but ready to strike.
"If it has to happen, it has to happen. At the end of the day we're fighting for our futures right?" said FCA worker Joshua Lamont, adding he feels on edge about the approaching deadline.
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