Stellantis vote could be narrow, or workers could strike: auto journalist
Automotive expert says Windsor members hold "swing votes" to "crush" a potential deal if they want
Talks between Stellantis and Unifor over a new contract for autoworkers are ongoing ahead of Sunday night's bargaining deadline.
If no deal is reached by 11:59 p.m. ET, an automotive journalist says he believes Stellantis workers will hit the picket line.
"[Unifor] extended the deadline for Ford because they thought they were close to a deal and that is exactly what happened," said Greg Layson, digital and mobile editor of Automotive News Canada. "They threatened GM with a new strike deadline, they didn't get a deal and they walked out."
Dave Cassidy, president of Unifor Local 444 representing 4,500 members at the Windsor Assembly Plant, was unavailable for comment on Thursday as he is involved in bargaining.
Unifor also represents 3,200 workers at the Brampton Assembly Plant and a few hundred members in clerical and parts distribution centres.
The United Auto Workers (UAW) — the union representing workers at the Detroit Three automakers in the United States — announced Wednesday night it had reached a tentative agreement with Ford Motor Company, potentially ending a six-week-long strike by UAW members at the company. The deal still needs to be ratified by union members.
There were fears that a continued UAW strike could pause production at Ford's Windsor engine plant.
John D'Agnolo is president of Unifor Local 200 and represents the 900 workers at the Ford plant.
He says the news of a potential deal for U.S. Ford workers is a win-win for workers in Windsor — and that if the deal is approved by UAW members, production at the Windsor plant will go on.
Layson says that while Stellantis' Windsor Assembly Plant is currently idle for extensive re-tooling, workers will still picket outside the facility.
"They're not going to want the contract workers to go in and do anything in the re-tooling; they'll try and stop them," he said. "It'll be business as usual on a Unifor picket line, whether they are building minivans or not in that plant right now, whether it's being re-tooled or not."
Layson says the re-tooling may have given Unifor less leverage in talks with Stellantis because no production is currently happening.
"But it might also be the reason they do walk out, knowing that they don't have to go to work on Monday," he said. "They can really grind out the negotiations a little bit longer with Stellantis."
Part of Unifor's demands include bargaining rights for the new Stellantis/LG Energy Solutions NextStar EV battery plant in Windsor, where construction was paused earlier this year before a deal was reached between the companies and the federal and provincial governments on increased subsidies for the plant.
"There's a lot of work here left to do and right now, I would say that we're up against it at the moment," said Lana Payne, Unifor national president, to Afternoon Drive guest host Colin Butler.
Stellantis is the last of the Detroit Three automakers to bargain with Unifor: Ford was the union's target company and the first to reach a deal in September, followed by GM earlier this month.
Unifor uses pattern bargaining, where the deal reached by the first company is mostly replicated by the other two automakers.
But the deals reached for Ford and GM have been received very differently by their respective members.
The Ford deal received one of the lowest approvals in history, with only 54 per cent of workers approving the deal. GM workers, on the other hand, voted 80 per cent in favour of their deal with the automaker. But skilled trades members at both automakers rejected the deal.
Layson says he believes any deal between Unifor and Stellantis will have an approval margin closer to that of the Ford deal, with Windsor workers having more of a say compared to the automakers' other facilities in the province.
"I don't know if you're going to see enough satisfied members at Stellantis when you consider Windsor holds the hammer here," Layson said.
"They have the swing votes. They have enough to crush any deal that is put before them to vote on."
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With files from Jacob Barker and Afternoon Drive