- Unifor hopes to conclude new contract talks with General Motors by August 21.
- The union is pushing GM to utilize spare capacity at the Oshawa Assembly Plant.
- Although the Silverado is built in Canada, the GMC Sierra actually outsells it.
Canada’s Unifor union is deep into contract talks with General Motors, and near the top of its wish list is a jump in local production. The union wants GM to put the free capacity at its Oshawa Assembly Plant to work by building the GMC Sierra there, adding a second nameplate to a factory that already has the room for it. GM hasn’t committed one way or the other, so for now the request sits on the bargaining table with everything else.
Oshawa currently builds light- and heavy-duty versions of the Chevrolet Silverado, and the line has the slack to take on more. Unifor president Lana Payne sees the Sierra as a natural fit, and she has a straightforward argument to back it: the Sierra outsells the Silverado in Canada, so building it on home soil would line production up with what Canadians are actually buying.
Read: Ford’s New Canadian Agreement Calls For More V8s
“There’s a lot of room here to be able to increase production not just because of the capacity that we have in our facilities, but because of what Canadians buy,” Payne told Auto News. “This is going to be part of what we discuss with General Motors.”
The union wants GM to close the gulf between what it sells in Canada and what it builds there. Last year, GM assembled 130,000 vehicles in the country but sold roughly 300,000. Payne calls that a “very big disconnect” that “needs to change.”
What Else Does Unifor Want?
GM has previously committed to building next-generation light-duty pickup trucks at the Oshawa plant, but isn’t saying which models these will be. Whatever the case may be, GM says it will retain a two-shift operation at the plant.
It’s not just a boost in local production that Unifor is seeking. Fresh off a new agreement with Ford, Unifor will seek pay rises among other benefits. Through its Ford deal, workers receive a three percent annual wage increase and $10,000 signing bonuses. Ford also agreed to more than $1 billion in additional investments into local car and engine production.
Payne says that challenges across the industry over the past 18 months should not stop GM from making local investments. Approximately 30 percent of the union’s 4,600 local members were on layoff as of August 10, due primarily to GM idling production at the CAMI Assembly Plant, which manufactured the Chevrolet BrightDrop van.
