Stellantis workers give Unifor 97% strike mandate

Unifor members at Stellantis Canada voted more than 97 per cent in favour of strike authorization over the weekend, the union announced Monday, as contract talks remain stalled over the future of the idled Brampton, Ont., assembly plant.

Unifor said 97.3 per cent of members who voted on Oct. 17 and 18 backed giving the bargaining committee the power to call job action if needed. CBC News reported the result as 97 per cent. Neither source gave turnout.

The vote does not start a strike. Unifor said in its release that it is not in a legal strike position, because neither the union nor Stellantis has asked for a “no board” report, a step Ontario labour law requires before a work stoppage. The union gave no strike deadline and no bargaining dates.

“Unifor members at Stellantis understand how difficult negotiations with the company have been,” Unifor national president Lana Payne said in the release. James Stewart, Unifor’s Stellantis master bargaining chairperson, said the union believes “there is a path to a fair collective agreement” and called strike action a last resort. He added that Unifor will not accept a deal that weakens Stellantis’s Canadian footprint.

In a video posted Monday, Stewart told members: “You have given us the tools to get this done,” CBC reported.

The dispute centres on job security. Stellantis has said it plans to sell the Brampton Assembly Plant to Roshel, a Canadian armoured vehicle maker, the Canadian Press reported. The company has said weaker market and trade conditions undercut the case for keeping the plant, but that a sale could support future jobs at the site. Unifor says Stellantis must honour earlier commitments to build Jeep vehicles there, and it wants guarantees for the Windsor Assembly Plant, including its third shift.

Brampton has had no production since 2023, and more than 2,000 workers were laid off, according to the Canadian Press. Jeep Compass production later moved to Illinois. Stellantis said weeks ago it was “seriously evaluating” a sale or closure, a notice Unifor called “a gut punch” in August, as we reported before talks began.

The mandate is far above the margins that came with the other two Detroit Three deals this year. Members at General Motors ratified their agreement with 80.5 per cent approval in Oshawa, St. Catharines and Woodstock, and 96.5 per cent in Ingersoll. Those were votes on finished contracts, not strike authorizations, so the numbers are not a direct comparison. They do show that Stellantis members have not been offered anything yet that resembles the product commitments Ford and GM attached to their plants.

Windsor is the other pressure point. Unifor Local 444 represents more than 6,400 workers at the plant, which builds the Chrysler Pacifica, Chrysler Voyager, Grand Caravan and Dodge Charger, according to CP24. A third shift was restored there in February, CBC reported. Union members are watching whether any sale of Brampton comes with firm commitments for Windsor.

Neither side has said publicly how many jobs a Roshel-owned Brampton site could provide. Stellantis has not said which products, if any, would be built in Windsor beyond the current lineup. Stellantis said earlier it remains committed to bargaining in good faith, as we reported while the vote was under way. The company had not commented on the result at the time of reporting.

The collective agreement expired on Sept. 20. For now, members keep working under the old terms while talks continue, and any move toward a walkout would first need the no board step to be completed.

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Sources: via CBC News (Yahoo News Canada) and Unifor (Newswire.ca). Earlier background from the Canadian Press, CP24 and CTV News Windsor. Original: Unifor release.