Failed UAW-FCA deal won't affect Canadian negotiations, says Unifor

The United Auto Workers' rejection of a new deal with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles shouldn't affect similar upcoming contract negotiations in Canada, says one prominent Unifor official.

The UAW, which represents about 40,000 Fiat Chrysler workers, reached a tentative agreement with the company two weeks ago that includes pay raises, the potential for increased profit sharing and a $3,000 US signing bonus. But the raises don't bring an end to a two-tier wage structure that pays workers hired before 2007 more money. The contract also allows the company to shift some car production to low-wage Mexico, replacing it with new trucks and SUVs that carry higher price tags to cover higher U.S. wages.

The UAW leadership had endorsed the three-year deal, but votes against it were overwhelming at a number of large FCA factories.

Dino Chiodo, president of Local 444, which represents nearly 5,000 FCA hourly workers at Windsor Assembly Plant, says the deal was a "decent agreement." But workers were expecting more after all they had given up in previous contracts, Chiodo said.

"Workers heard over and over again from [CEO] Sergio Marchionne, he wanted to eradicate the two-tier structure and system, but I think it is more embedded now than it was before, because it hasn't been resolved," Chiodo said. "It's still incorporated in the collective agreement, and you have more than a one-tier structure. So technically, you could work next to the person and basically that person is always going to be at six, eight, 10 dollars an hour less than you, without being able to see the light that they could ever get to full rate of pay."

The official totals of the UAW's vote weren't released, but workers at many large factories voted against the pact by large margins, making victory impossible.

Late Wednesday, members at the last plant to vote in Belvidere, Illinois, turned down the contract. The local union's website says 65 per cent of the 2,980 workers who voted were against it. Members at large assembly plants in Toledo, Ohio, and Sterling Heights, Michigan, also rejected the pact in voting Tuesday. Only a handful of local unions voted in favour.

A UAW spokesman said final results would be released on Thursday.

Chiodo said the vote sent a strong message to union leadership.

The U.S. development shouldn't affect negotiations in Canada next year, because there are not different tiers of pay here, said Chiodo, who was part of the last round Unifor-FCA negotiations.

Health care is paid for through taxes in Canada and Unifor previously agreed to changes in the company's pension plan, among other things.

"We've already looked at creative ways to reduce overall costs. We fit into a model that made us competitive," Chiodo said. "We didn't want to get to a point where we were selling ourselves short but we wanted to make sure we could stay competitive. I think the workers recognize that what we did was a necessity."

The UAW leaders will meet Thursday in Detroit to plan their next move.

American FCA auto workers are still working under contract extensions after their previous deals expired in September.