Toronto, Ontario – A timeline has been officially set for when Ford of Canada and Unifor must reach a deal on renegotiating wages for their more than 6,300 Canadian employees.
Ford, the first of the Detroit Three automakers to be targeted by the union, has until Sept. 22 to reach a deal with Unifor, or else face a potential strike to follow.
Prioritizing Ford was deliberate, according to Unifor national president Jerry Dias, as he considers employees at Ford’s Oakville plant to be among the most vulnerable workers in the union.
“The Ford Edge is expected to roll off the assembly line sometime in 2023 and we have not gotten a firm commitment yet from Ford,” said Dias at a news conference in Toronto.
All parties involved hope to avoid a situation similar to that of GM Oshawa, which saw the shutdown of all automotive work at the plant in late 2019.
Dias says that going forward, the union would like to see negotiation cycles shortened from four years to three, in order to better align with U.S. labour talks.
