Unifor has reached a tentative agreement with General Motors (GM) this week after striking for less than 24 hours.
Since August 10, Unifor has been engaging in pattern bargaining with the “Detroit Three (D3)” automaker companies – Ford, General Motors and Stellantis – which employs 18,000 Unifor members.
The tentative agreement reached with GM matches the pattern agreement that was ratified with Ford “to the letter,” according to a release by Unifor.
The pattern agreement with Ford was celebrated by the union for “fundamentally changing” pension plans and protecting workers while automakers make the switch to electrical vehicle manufacturing. However, although the pattern agreement was ratified, it does not mean that members are widely happy with the pattern that has been set for this year’s auto talks.
Pattern bargaining, the type of bargaining that Unifor is using in their talks with the D3, is when a union focuses their energy on reaching a deal with one company in a sector. Once an agreement is ratified, that deal is used as the standard that the union aims to achieve or exceed with other employers in the same sector.
The pattern agreement that was reached with Ford was ratified narrowly. Only 54 per cent of Ford workers voted in favour of the deal.
A similar ratification vote result in recent memory is the result of the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) ratification vote in June 2022. The tentative agreement achieved between the ATA and the Teachers’ Employer Bargaining Association was accepted by 51 per cent of ATA voters. Former ATA president Larry Booi said that the vote result demonstrated that the deal was the “absolute minimum” members would accept.
With the Ford deal being ratified by a similar margin as the 2022 ATA collective agreement, it is possible that the pattern set for this year’s bargaining could prove divisive among members.
Unifor Ford leadership unanimously endorsed the tentative agreement, with Unifor Ford master bargaining chair John D’Agnolo saying the deal raises standards for workers across the auto sector. Unifor also highlighted that the deal included the highest wage increases in the history of Canadian auto bargaining.
At the same time, a letter to members from Unifor president Lana Payne revealed that the majority of skilled trades members in Oakville and Windsor did not vote in favour of the agreement.
As well, some Stellantis workers in Windsor may be looking to break the pattern once it is their turn to bargain, according to an article by Greg Layson published for Automotive News Canada.
Layson’s article revealed that Unifor Local 44 president Dave Cassidy felt that he did not see support for the Ford deal during a local meeting on October 1. This could forecast some resistance to the pattern set with Ford.
The frustrations with the pattern set with Ford for the 2023 Auto Talks reflects a criticism of Unifor’s strategy that was highlighted by Tom Sandborn for rabble. Sandborn quoted the World Socialist Website which is calling for more militance from Unifor and the American auto workers union UAW.
“What many observers to the left of Unifor and UAW leadership would like to see is a continent-wide strike of auto workers in Canada, the US and Mexico with militant demands to shift some of the profits from the industry away from already overpaid CEOs to the workers who actually build the cars and generate the profits,” Sandborn wrote.
The ratification vote for the GM tentative agreement has yet to happen. While Unifor leadership has endorsed the gains included in this agreement, it remains to be seen whether the pattern set at Ford will be broken by workers who want more from GM and Stellantis.
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