After a marathon of bargaining over the course of more than 24 consecutive hours this week Canada’s largest public sector union Unifor reached a tentative deal with Ford Motor Company.
The new deal will cover more than 5,600 workers at Ford’s Canadian facilities in Ontario and Alberta.
“What a time to fight for working people right now,” said Unifor President Lana Payne in a press conference on Tuesday announcing the deal. “And for unions, you’ve just got to stick at it right now and take advantage of the moment that we’re in and try to make sure that we’re making generational gains for workers because that is what collective bargaining can do. It can change lives; and we believe we will change some lives with this agreement.”
At issue for the union, whose collective agreement with Ford expired at midnight on Tuesday, was pensions, wages and the transition of the company to the production of electric vehicles, as well as investment in their Canadian facilities.
“In addition to reaching a master agreement, our members at each Ford location face their own unique set of issues that needed to be resolved by our committees at the bargaining table,” said Unifor Ford master bargaining chair John D’Agnolo in a statement released by Unifor. “This agreement makes the kind of gains our members need today and adds greater financial security for the future.”
Protecting workers in a changing industry
As the climate crisis continues to worsen, the auto industry is facing increasing pressures for necessary change.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the average car emits 4.6 metric tons of the greenhouse gas CO2 into the atmosphere every year. In the US and Canada there are a combined 300 million cars in private ownership.
Climate disasters like the wildfires of this summer that have burned over 175,000 square kilometers so far in Canada highlight the pressing need to reduce carbon emissions.
Auto companies like Ford are recognizing this and the public’s desire for low-emission alternatives like electric vehicles.
In April of this year, Ford announced it would be investing $1.8 billion in its production facility in Oakville, ON, to transform it into a hub for the creation of electric vehicles.
“Canada and the Oakville complex will play a vital role in our Ford+ transformation. It will be a modern, super-efficient, vertically integrated site for battery and vehicle assembly. I’m most excited for the world to see the incredible next-generation electric and fully digitally connected vehicles produced in Oakville,” reads a statement from Jim Farley, Ford’s President and CEO.
The transition to electric vehicles is not enough however. Environmental activist David Suzuki points out that to effectively combat the climate crisis, that regardless of how cars are powered, dependency on cars must fall.
Car sales are falling, according to Statistics Canada, which reports that registrations of new vehicles in Canada have fallen in the third financial quarter of each year since 2017.
Unifor states that this new agreement with Ford, which will be its blueprint for negotiations with other auto-makers, will help guide their members through this transition to a greener and more sustainable economy.
Editor’s Note: an earlier version of this story stated that Unifor was the largest public sector union, when in fact it is the largest private sector union. rabble regrets the error.
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