A worker driving a Chevrolet Equinox leaves the General Motors CAMI car assembly plant where the GMC Terrain and Chevrolet Equinox are built, in Ingersoll, Ont., Jan. 27, 2017.GEOFF ROBINS/Reuters
Workers at a General Motors Co. plant in Ingersoll, Ont., have approved a new contract with the company that provides some improvements in job security language but falls short of the strong job protection their union was seeking.
Job security emerged as the key issue in the negotiations and the four-week strike after GM shifted production of one of the vehicles being made at Cami Automotive to a plant in Mexico.
The agreement reached between GM and Unifor late last week and approved by members in a vote on Monday improves protections under the plant closing and restructuring provisions that were available under the previous contract and offers enhanced early retirement options.
But the union failed to win language designating the Cami plant as the lead plant for assembly of the Chevrolet Equinox, which would have ensured that it was first in line for new investment when the vehicle is redesigned and last in line for layoffs if the market slows or the vehicle's popularity falls.
"Our demand to protect the Equinox was not only fair and reasonable, it simply made sense," Unifor president Jerry Dias said in a bulletin distributed to workers as they voted on the agreement on Monday.
But executives "at the highest levels of General Motors corporate in Detroit" refused to include such language in a new contract, Mr. Dias wrote.
"As a result and after much internal discussion we decided that we could not in good conscience, ask for more economic sacrifice from you in this fight."
The tentative agreement was announced on Friday after GM officials told Mr. Dias and Unifor negotiators earlier in the week that they were preparing to increase production of the Equinox substantially at two plants in Mexico amid a hot market for the crossover.
"The issue became, do we settle it now and stop the bleeding as it relates to them ramping up Mexico," Mr. Dias said in an interview.
The issues raised in the Cami strike underline why the North American free-trade agreement needs to be renegotiated or dismantled, he said.
Ratification of the deal is welcome news, said Stephen Carlisle, president of General Motors of Canada.
"The negotiations process requires a great deal of straight talk, creative problem solving, and compromise to achieve a positive outcome for both the membership and the company," Mr. Carlisle said in a statement.
The deal increases the severance and retirement costs GM would face if it were to close the plant to $290-million from $190-million in the previous contract, Mike van Boekel, chair of the Cami unit of Unifor local 88, said on Monday.
The four-year agreement gives workers a total of $12,000 in bonuses and lump-sum payments as well as 2-per-cent annual wage increases in the first and fourth years.
The contact provides for early retirement incentives of $50,000 plus a $20,000 vehicle voucher to encourage some longer serving members to retire, which would permit the recall of some workers laid off when production of the GMC Terrain was shifted to Mexico this summer.
The job security clauses also allow supplementary unemployment benefit payments – which top up employment insurance during layoffs – to be used as what are known as "grow-in" payments for employees who retire before they are eligible for pensions.
The new retirement incentives will contribute to about half of the 410 people laid off when Terrain production was ended getting their jobs back, Mr. van Boekel said.
Other employees who were laid off will be offered jobs at GM's engine and transmission plant in St. Catharines, Ont., and a parts depot in Woodstock, Ont., he said.
The strike began Sept. 17 at Cami, whose workers are on a separate contract from workers at GM's other unionized operations in Canada – the St. Catharines and Woodstock facilities and an assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont.
The Equinox is one of GM's hottest-selling vehicles in both Canada and the United States.
It is also assembled in Ramos Arizpe and San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
Inventories fell to 41 days supply, substantially below the 60 to 70 days worth of vehicles on hand that auto makers prefer.