One bullet dodged, almost. About three hours before a contract extension deadline, Ford Motor Co. and Unifor, the union representing Canadian autoworkers, reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract, avoiding a possible strike.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., a limited strike by UAW members against each of the Detroit Three automakers could grow by Friday.
How did the company that builds the Mustang buck a walkout across the border? In a news release Ford would only say, “The agreement is subject to ratification by Ford-Unifor members. To respect the ratification process, Ford of Canada will not discuss the specifics of the tentative agreement.”
Unifor’s leader was only slightly more illuminating in her statement to the media declaring,
“We believe that this tentative agreement, endorsed by the entire master bargaining committee, addresses all of the items raised by members in preparation for this round of collective bargaining,” said Unifor National President Lana Payne.
But in a separate note to union members on its website, Payne said that under the union won “fundamental, transformative gains that addressed our core priorities of pensions, wages and the EV transition.”
Faced with the prospect of a strike by its 5,600 Canadian union workers Ford made a significant enough offer just before the current contract expired on Monday night to agree to a 24-hour extension to allow talks to continue. The tentative deal was announced about three hours before the extension expired, according to the union.
The tentative deal must now be ratified before union members before it goes into effect.
Talks with General Motors Co. and Stellantis, in turn, would resume once the Ford contract is ratified. If members reject it, it’s back to the bargaining table to try again. Whatever the final deal turns out to be, it will set the template for eventual contracts with GM and Stellantis.
Accord in Canada may or may not be a hopeful sign the broader battle in the U.S. is any closer to being resolved.
While some of the demands by the two unions are similar, in several ways they are significantly different.
UAW president Shawn Fain is demanding 40% pay raises over the life of a four-year agreement, reinstatement of cost of living allowances, or COLAs, an end to the two-tier pay system installed to save the automakers money during the recession, along with retiree health care benefits.
But in a video posted last Friday, Unifor’s Lana Payne pointed out while the basic issues may coincide with those in the U.S., there are several areas where they do not including pay rates, work classifications, work standards and job security.
“There are also fundamental differences between our countries, including our access to universal public health care,” Payne said. “There are also different challenges for the UAW with lower wages and weaker labor laws in a growing segment of auto production in many Right to Work states. All of this accounts to completely different political, social, and economic context for our members, as well as differences in our collective agreements, including expiry dates.”
The other big difference this time around, at least, is that UAW Shawn Fain has metaphorically tossed the traditional process into the flames of the barrels set on picket lines to keep strikers warm.
For the first time in history the union is striking all the companies simultanenously, although at only one plant each. The UAW is also bargaining with all three at the same time, separately, looking to reach a deal basically applicable across the board, rather than using one contract to set the pattern for the other two.
While neither the Canadian union nor the automakers publicized specifics of their demands and counter offers, on the U.S. side both sides, for the first time were quite public with their positions.
Fain has promised walkouts at additional locations if he’s not pleased with the progress of the talks. He’s set a noon eastern time deadline on Friday but the union announced he will make some sort of announcement on Facebook Live two hours earlier, ostensibly to reveal those locations, or give the status of the talks.
But on Monday, Fain, not known for any sort of subtlty, posted a famous, profane, movie clip to his account on X.com, formerly known as Twitter.
Different times, indeed.
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