The pressure is growing on the Canadian Auto Workers union to agree to slash benefits at Chrysler Canada as the automaker and its parent face a 30 April deadline to have a restructuring plan in place for US and Canadian governments.
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Chrysler chairman Robert Nardelli and vice-chairman Tom LaSorda took the extraordinary step of issuing a letter directly to employees of the Canadian unit urging them to agree to give up benefits worth C$8.24 an hour.
“Without labour concessions, Chrysler Canada’s manufacturing operations will not survive long-term,” the two executives said in the letter.
The automaker has assembly plants in Windsor and Brampton in the province of Ontario, which employ about 8,000 people and are the sole production source of Chrysler’s market-leading minivans and its full-sized sedans and Challenger muscle car.
“Our negotiations are about saving Chrysler Canada,” the executives said. “We are coming down to the wire in the fight for our company’s survival—and we need your support.”
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By GlobalDataThe letter from Nardelli and LaSorda capped a week of intense and unprecedented public pressure on the CAW and its president Ken Lewenza.
First Fiat chief executive Sergio Marchionne said early last week his company would abandon a plan to save Chrysler unless both the CAW and the United Auto Workers agree to trim hourly labour costs.
That was followed a day later by Canada’s Industry Minister Tony Clement jumping into the dispute by saying Chrysler workers in Canada need to trim hourly labour costs by $19 an hour, to $57.
Then Nardelli and LaSorda sent their letter on Friday.
The campaign is “an unprecedented and outrageous series of attacks on Canadian auto workers and their union,” Lewenza said in response.
Union members burned copies of the letter during a lunch-hour protest on Friday outside Chrysler’s Windsor assembly plant.
“Canadians deserve better than to be threatened by a company which has enjoyed enjoyed billions of dollars in profits here,” Lewenza added.
The dispute actually centres on $12 an hour in cuts because the union has already agreed to give Chrysler the $7 an hour in concessions it has already granted General Motors of Canada.
But it insists that anything beyond that would be breaking a “pattern agreement,” which is the sacred union practice that a deal made with one of the Detroit Three auto makers is applicable to the other two companies.
But Chrysler has said it needs more than GM, including eliminating life insurance coverage for employees, increasing health care premiums, wiping out a host of benefits such as legal services, orthotics and massage therapy and increasing the fees workers pay for purchasing prescription drugs.
Negotiations resumed on Monday (20 April).
