Unifor auto talks: a quiet end to one of the year's biggest labour clashes
CTV
Unifor's marathon three months of high profile contact talks with the Detroit Three automakers ended with a tepid 60 per cent vote of support from Stellantis production workers Monday, before the union quickly moved on to other labour fights in a year that's been full of them.
One of Canada's most highly anticipated set of labour talks in years wrapped up this week, but there's no victory parade planned.
Unifor's marathon three months of high profile contact talks with the Detroit Three automakers -- where gains and losses often set the tone for other industries -- instead ended with a tepid 60 per cent vote of support from Stellantis production workers Monday, before the union quickly moved on to other labour fights in a year that's been full of them.
"It seems like every week we have another strike deadline that we're facing. This has been a very big bargaining year for us," said Lana Payne, national president of Unifor in an interview.
But while the union has seen some 85,000 members at the bargaining table this year, expectations were especially high for the nearly 20,000 who work at Stellantis, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors.
After decades of concessions to the automakers, the combination of high frustration about the rising cost of labour and the record profits of the companies had combined to create what looked like a generational opportunity to claw back past losses.
"We told the automakers that the expectations were high, and nothing short of a historic collective agreement was going to get ratified in these moments," said Payne.
The result was a deal that secured base wage gains for production workers of nearly 20 per cent, along with a long list of other improvements including to pensions, job security, a faster path to seniority, bonus pay and more vacation days.