Canadian Autoworkers Ratify New Contract With General Motors

Canadian autoworkers have voted to ratify a three-year contract agreement with General Motors.

Members of Unifor, the union representing about 4,300 Canadian workers at three Ontario GM facilities, voted 80.5% in favor of the deal, the union said Sunday in a statement.

The vote followed the pattern of an agreement reached earlier with Ford, and it leaves only Jeep maker Stellantis without a contract. Talks have yet to start with Stellantis, which has the largest Canadian manufacturing footprint of Detroit's three automakers.

The GM agreement came after a brief strike last week by the workers at GM factories in Oshawa and St. Catharines, Ontario, and a parts warehouse in Woodstock, Ontario.

GM says in a statement that the deal recognizes worker contributions while positioning the company to be competitive in the future.

Unifor said that the deal includes pay raises of nearly 20% for production workers and 25% for skilled trades. Workers would get 10% in general pay raises in the first year, with 2% in the second and 3% in the third. The company also agreed to restore cost-of-living pay raises starting in December of 2024. Temporary workers would get pay raises, and those with at least one year of service would get permanent jobs.

Workers who get defined-contribution retirement plans will move to a new defined-benefits pension on Jan. 1, 2025.

Unifor is Canada's largest in the private sector union, with 315,000 workers in many industries.

In the United States, strikes continue by the United Auto Workers union with nearly 34,000 workers off their jobs at all three Detroit companies.