St Catharines, Ontario — Discussions between Unifor and GM are scheduled to begin on Thursday, Oct. 22, and have set a strike deadline of 11:59 p.m. EST on Nov. 5.
The talks are expected to cover about 1,600 hourly workers who are mainly located at Gm’s St. Catharines powertrain plant.
Unifor is looking to secure a new product for St. Catharines to replace a six-speed transmission that is set to be phased out at the plant in 18 months, according to Local 999 president, Greg Brady.
The St. Catherine plant builds V-6 and V-8 engines for vehicles including the Chevrolet Silverado, GMC Sierra, and the Cadillac Escalade.
At the negotiations with Unifor, Brady hopes to draw attention to replacing the six-speed transmissions, noting that the engine programs remain stable, specifically the V-8 engine, which he called the plants “bread and butter.”
GM and Unifor are also expected to discuss the company’s former assembly plant in Oshawa, where production was ended in 2019. Today, more than 265 hourly workers are building aftermarket parts at the plant, with another 189 or so laid-off, stated GM.
And due to the pandemic, GM was able to transform parts of the Oshawa plant into the production of roughly 1 million marks per month, fulfilling a contract between GM and the federal government.
However, Jerry Dias—president of Unifor, has made it no secret he wants vehicles built at the Oshawa plant and said that the talks on Thursday will have a major focus on that topic.
“You’ve got this incredible paint shop there. We should talk about utilizing it,” he said. “It’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars. We’ll see. I’m not making any outlandish predictions. I’m not going to say anything foolish,” he said.
Brady believes 2021 negotiations will be of a greater impact if Unifor peruses an EV investment, like with Ford and FCA, but at GM’s CAMI plant, which builds the Chevrolet Equinox crossover, when CAMI Assembly in Ingersoll, Ont., expires.
“Hopefully, CAMI will get some sort of EV or new product and that product will cause some new employment for the St. Catharines facility,” Brady said, noting the plants’ proximity to each other.
The two sides will have a lot to discuss, despite only 1,600 hourly workers who are mainly located at Gm’s St. Catharines powertrain plant being impacted by the negotiations.
