Unifor — the union that represents autoworkers in Canada — is preparing to kick off official contract talks with the Detroit Three automakers, taking a different approach and tone to bargaining than the UAW, its U.S. counterpart. Unifor is expected to put forth a different set of demands as well.
But make no mistake, said Unifor National President Lana Payne, the two unions will be in communication throughout the bargaining process, which comes during the historic transformation of the auto industry from gasoline powered cars to electric vehicles.
“For the first time in a generation our Detroit Three negotiations will take place at the same time as UAW bargaining,” Payne told the Detroit Free Press in an email. “The UAW has an important job to do and a very unique set of challenges to overcome. They will also deal with the issues that matter to our members, pensions, wages affordability and transition to the EV future. I’m certain we will do well by each other in this round of talks, because both of our unions have committed to dialogue, close contact and solidarity.”
But Payne said Unifor has its own focus beyond the overlapping issues of pensions, wages and an EV transition. She did not get into details, but experts who have studied the two unions said Unifor will take a different approach at the bargaining table.
“A key goal of Unifor is to retain and possibly expand auto jobs in the midst of the move towards EVs,” said Harley Shaiken, professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, who is an expert on labor issues. “Lana Payne, the new president, is seeking to present a positive tone and build a constructive relationship with the auto companies to build investment.”
New UAW President Shawn Fain has made it his priority to show the world that the union is taking a new direction from its recent past. He refused to do a traditional handshake with the automakers’ CEOs last month when the UAW officially kicked off its bargaining. Instead, Fain visited key plants to shake hands with union members.
Fain already has made public a long list of demands of the Detroit Three too. That list includes substantial wage increases, restoration of cost-of-living adjustments, elimination of wage tiers and more paid time off, to list a few. He has frequently mentioned the possibility of a strike.
“He has taken an unusually tough tone with the automakers from the beginning and is stressing transparency in bargaining and hard deadlines,” Shaiken said.
Fain told the Free Press in an email Friday, “Our two unions have always had common interests. Now we’re finding a common approach to winning the strong contracts our members in Canada and the United States deserve. We are stronger when we’re together and the contracts we’re negotiating will reflect that.”
A historic summit takes place
Payne told the Free Press Unifor is prepared itself to fight.
“We bargain tough. We bargain strategically. But we don’t back down from fights,” Payne said. “We are always in the best position to determine our future – in our own way.”
The unions will be bargaining heading into their contracts expiring within days of each other. The UAW contract with Detroit’s automakers expires Sept. 14 and the Unifor contract expires Sept. 18.
UAW leadership has indicated it may not name a lead automaker to bargain a contract, breaking from recent tradition in which the first deal would be used to pattern the other two. But Unifor is sticking to that practice. It plans to hold the traditional opening handshake with the Detroit Three on Thursday. Industry sources also expect Unifor will announce a lead company for negotiations in early September and follow pattern bargaining.
Both unions broke with tradition on Tuesday when, per a post on Twitter, they said they met in Windsor, Ontario, to discuss strategic objectives and other areas of collaboration in bargaining with the Detroit carmakers.
“They’ve always discussed things before talks, but they were never negotiating at the same time and never visible like what just took place,” Shaiken said of the meeting. But he noted that, “Unifor made a conscious decision to change their contract expiration date so that they could negotiate at the same time as the UAW – they thought there’d be some advantages to that.”
According to Erik Gordon, a business professor at Ross School of Business at University of Michigan, Unifor and the UAW increased their power by putting the Detroit Three in the position of facing the possibility of having no production on either side of the border if no contracts are reached.
But, Gordon added, “It would take a transplant of loud, cocky American personality to well-mannered, reasonable Canadian personality to get Unifor and the UAW truly united.”
Other experts expect the two will present a united front.
“I expect, given the timing of the contract expirations and the rising militancy of unions to see a greater synchronization of bargaining across the US and Canadian borders between the UAW and Unifor,” said Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University and expert on labor relations.
Masters, who recently wrote an op-ed in the Free Press on why this year’s talks are different, said there are differences in how each union handles its relations in the industry. Unifor is likely to focus on “linking governmental and company policies to promote capital investments in the auto industry in Canada, which supports about 500,000 in that country’s economy.”
He said both unions will focus on wage increases, with Unifor paying more attention to how profit sharing fits into that equation this time around.
A change at the top, a leader cleared of charges
Both unions have new leadership going into the talks. Fain was narrowly elected in March in the first direct vote by members.
Unifor’s Payne is now at the helm after former President Jerry Dias took a medical leave and early retirement in the first part of 2022. Dias was then investigated for an alleged breach of the union’s constitution. Payne was elected Unifor’s president — the first female president of the union — in August 2022 after having served as national secretary-treasurer.
In May of this year, Toronto police cleared Dias of any charges as the result of an investigation launched last year into allegations that he’d accepted a bribe, according to a CBC report. The report said Unifor’s director of legal and constitutional matters, Anthony Dale, said that the union’s own matters relating to Dias are satisfactorily closed and Dias will no longer be subject to a hearing process under Unifor’s constitution.
How the demands might differ for Unifor
Payne is an experienced negotiator, Shaiken said, and Unifor has made the decision to work with the Detroit Three to ensure future investments and job security as all three move toward a future of EVs.
Also, said Shaiken, the automakers, “are well aware, given their profits, that they’re going to have some tough demands at the bargaining table.”
Both unions will likely want a wage boost due to inflation, but the UAW has made it clear it wants to keep the profit-sharing bonus and other benefits and add such things as a cost-of-living adjustment. So far, GM has stepped forward to say it will offer wage increases to its UAW members, but some of Fain’s other demands ‘threaten’ the long-term health of the company.
Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has said the goal of the talks will be to protect annual profit-sharing bonuses for years to come and that will depend on keeping the company competitive, particularly in light of the costly EV transition.
Since both unions know that EVs require less labor, have not proved as profitable as gasoline-powered cars and require large capital investments, Masters said he expects to see “heavy emphasis on hourly wage increases and job security and equitable transition to EVs, which means union wages and job protections.”
“If there are no jobs, wages do not matter,” Masters said. “From the unions’ perspectives, there need to be more unionized jobs, which has implications for organizing the (automakers) and parts suppliers, including nonunion joint venture battery plants.”
Also, in Canada, profit sharing checks aren’t as a high of a priority to Unifor as they are to the UAW, Shaiken said.
The formula for the UAW for profit-sharing checks is $1,000 per every $1 billion in annual earnings before interest and taxes, or pretax profits for North America.
“The Canadian autoworkers haven’t embraced it the same way,” Shaiken said. “They want to get the profits into things that are secure: Benefits, higher wagers, new investments. They want to bargain over their share of the profits at the table. Lana Payne feels she needs a working relationship with the companies that is positive and constructive that brings more investment.”
More:GM confirms future wage hike for UAW members, but other demands ‘threaten’ company health
More:Wall Street hits hold on GM stock amid concerns about EV roll out, UAW talks
Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.