Members of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union have voted over the weekend in favour of new three-year contracts at General Motors of Canada and Chrysler Canada, sealing agreements that contain promises of some new investment while leaving hourly labour costs essentially flat, writes our Canadian correspondent.
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About 87% of workers at three Chrysler plants and 84% of CAW members at several GM locations approved the deals, which were reached within hours of each other last week.
The agreements were reached four months before the expiry of the current contracts in mid-September. Ford workers approved a new contract earlier in May.
“I have no doubt in my mind that going into early bargaining with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler was the best thing for our members,” said CAW president Buzz Hargrove.
“With the new product commitments contained in the agreement, our members will be better equipped to weather the economic storm currently devastating the auto industry.”
The union agreed to a three-year freeze in basic wages, a halt to cost of living adjustment wage increases until 2009, surrender of one week of holidays in each year of the contract in return for a C$3,500 payment and a steep increase in the amounts workers pay for prescription drugs.
New workers will receive 70% of full hourly pay when first employed and take three years to grow to full wages. That compares with the current scale of 85% of full pay and a two-year delay in reaching full wages.
The CAW won commitments from GM for another car off the Zeta platform to join the Chevrolet Camaro at its assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario, and promises of a new transmission and new V8 engines at a plant in Saint Catharines, also in Ontario province.
As just-auto reported last week, GM will close its transmission plant in Windsor, Ontario, in 2010.
Chrysler has agreed to keep open a Toronto casting plant until June 2011, while trying to sell it or find a joint-venture partner.
It also confirmed the next generation of its LY platform large sedans will be built in Brampton, Ontario, and three shifts of minivan production will continue in Windsor as long as the market remains healthy.
The 2008 talks occurred against a backdrop of higher labour costs in Canada compared with the United States because of a surge in the value of the Canadian dollar and new United Auto Workers agreements reached last year that dramatically reduced the wage and benefit bills the Detroit automakers face in their home country.
