Given the lack of progress in talks between the Canadian Auto Workers’ union and the Detroit three automakers, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, plus the possible threat of a triple strike, it appears there’s a real possibility of at least one automaker, pulling its manufacturing operations out of Canada entirely.
Following the Labour Day weekend, Chrysler CEO, Sergio Marchionne, said that the company “has other options” when it comes to North American manufacturing, implying that it could, if necessary shutter its plants in Brampton and Windsor. Marchionne, born in Italy and raised in Ontario, has helped steer Chrysler back from the brink – this year, the automaker has posted sales gains of 26 per cent (14 per cent in August alone) in the U.S., making it the only member of the “Big Three” to significantly grow market share in 2012. Marchionne has said that he is in favor of a two-tier wage structure, with new hires receiving slightly over half the rate of the seasoned workers. He is also in favor of profit sharing agreements rather than guaranteed wage increases, which he says, should hopefully result in higher incomes than cost of living adjustments. Such factors were a key part of a new deal negotiated between Chrysler and the United Auto Workers’ union in the U.S. last year.
The CAW’s hardline stance is seen by some industry observers as actually causing more problems than it will solve, with comparisons being drawn with the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization in the U.S and in Britain, the National Union of Mineworkers – two labour organizations that were either destroyed or significantly neutralized as a result of their actions in the early and mid-1980s.
If Canadian auto plants were shuttered, Carlos Gomes, senior economist at Scotiabank said the result would be a 0.6 per cent reduction in Canada’s GDP on a month-to-month basis. Sources within the CAW report that the threat of strike action has resulted in more constructive discussions with Ford and General Motors.
