Detroit News
By Sharon Terlep
May 13, 2008
The Canadian Auto Workers union headed into this year's labor talks with General Motors Corp. hoping to get the company to commit new products to Canadian plants.
Instead, the union now finds itself fighting to secure buyout packages for members who will be out of work when GM shutters its Windsor transmission factory in 2010, a plan the automaker announced on Monday.
"We're not starting out well," CAW President Buzz Hargrove said Monday. "This came as a shock that, in the middle of bargaining, they would make that decision.
"But you can't grab product out of thin air."
Hargrove said he's now focused on securing retirement incentives and buyout packages that will allow workers at the plant to leave the firm comfortably. The union made a proposal to GM, which it refused.
Hargrove set a bargaining deadline of 6 p.m. Wednesday. If the union and automaker don't make significant progress by then on negotiations at the Windsor plant and toward a new national agreement, the union may halt talks until this fall when the current contract expires.
The Windsor factory employs about 1,600 and builds four-speed transmissions, which are losing favor in the auto industry as car firms shift toward more fuel-efficient six-speed transmissions.
GM said it tried to find a new transmission for the plant to build.
"We have worked extensively with our labor and government partners, but have been led to the unavoidable conclusion that there are no available replacement products in the relevant timeframe for this location," GM Canada President Arturo Elias said in a statement.
The union and company have been in talks since Thursday over a new, three-year labor deal to cover 15,000 hourly GM workers in six Canadian factories. Along with the national contract, the two sides are also bargaining plant-level contracts at factories that include Windsor.
CAW bargaining with Chrysler LLC began on Monday. The union already has a deal with Ford Motor Co. that essentially freezes wages and benefits. Ford's Canadian work force ratified the deal last week.
The CAW wants Chrysler and GM to sign a pact similar to the one at Ford. Hargrove said Monday that Chrysler said the Ford deal is "too rich" to match. Chrysler spokeswoman Mary Beth Halprin declined to comment.
The Canadian car industry is under pressure to cut costs after years of boasting cheaper labor relative America's. A weak U.S. dollar and last year's cost-cutting labor deals between Detroit's Big Three and the United Auto Workers have cut the cost of building cars and trucks in America.
Hargrove said he's willing to send workers to the picket lines to win product commitments for two other key GM factories, in St. Catharines and Oshawa, Ontario. Hargrove said he opted against a strike in Windsor because neither the company nor union could identify a new product for the plant.
"You strike over something you think is achievable," he said. "If we thought there was a product out there we can strike and fight to win. We may have to strike over getting a closeout agreement."
Hargrove wouldn't detail the difference between the CAW's offer and what GM is willing to give workers in Windsor. He blasted the Canadian government, saying it had "written off" that nation's auto industry. Windsor will be without an auto factory for the first time since 1963 once the Windsor plant closes, he said.
GM spokesman Stew Low said workers at shuttered plants typically receive what is called income security, which amounts to three years' of pay at up to 65 percent of a worker's current wage.
