Stellantis Gets Deal With Canada Workers After Brief Strike

Unifor, which represents Canadian auto workers, announced the deal in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter. The strike, involving more than 8,200 people, began about eight hours earlier after the sides failed to conclude their negotiations by a Sunday-night deadline.

Unifor had been pressing Stellantis for a contract that would match terms already agreed upon with Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co.

Unlike the UAW, which held strikes at all three Detroit automakers at once, Unifor has followed a more traditional “pattern bargaining” approach, targeting one company for a contract and then trying to get the other two to match it.

The union extracted from Ford a nearly 20% increase in the base hourly wage for production workers and 25% for skilled trades over three years, as well as bonuses and cost-of-living adjustments. GM agreed to similar terms after a brief strike on Oct. 10.

Beyond pay and pensions, one of Unifor’s key issues in the Stellantis talks was confirming future investments in Canadian plants. Stellantis has promised to put billions of dollars into its two Ontario assembly plants for the industry’s transition to hybrid and electric vehicles.

Those two manufacturing sites, including a stamping plant, have about 6,000 employees combined, according to Stellantis’s website. The company makes the Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger and Chrysler Pacifica vehicles in Canada, among other models.

It’s also building an electric vehicle battery plant in Windsor, Ontario, in partnership with South Korea’s LG Energy Solution Ltd.