Published October 17, 2023, 6:11 PM ET
Unifor says it will officially begin contract negotiations with Stellantis on Wednesday and has set a strike deadline of Oct. 29 at 11:59 p.m. Unifor participants attend their Auto Talks meeting with Stellantis in Toronto on Thursday, August 10, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tijana Martin
TORONTO – Unifor says it will officially begin contract negotiations with Stellantis on Wednesday and has set a strike deadline of Oct. 29 at 11:59 p.m
Talks with Stellantis come after union members at both Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. voted for contract terms that Unifor wants to adopt at Stellantis.
Unifor President Lana Payne said in a statement that she looks forward to securing the terms of the pattern while making “important additional progress on various Stellantis-specific workplace issues.”
Dave Cassidy, president of Local 444, which represents Stellantis workers in Windsor, Ont., said members have told him they are not happy with the pattern and therefore there is still a lot of work ahead of them.
The contracts so far have included, among other things, an increase in the basic hourly wage of almost 20 percent for production workers and 25 percent for craftsmen, a faster deadline for workers to advance to the top wage level, pension improvements and two new paid holiday gains.
Ford workers voted 54 percent in favor of the contract last month, while GM workers, who staged a 12-hour strike before negotiating a tentative deal, voted 80.5 percent in favor last weekend.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2023.
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