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Ford Motor Co.’s unionized Canadian autoworkers began voting on a tentative agreement Saturday that their union says delivers gains in its core priorities of pensions, wages, managing the electric vehicle transition and new investments, all of which are areas of interest to UAW members on picket lines in the United States.
On wages, Unifor said workers would be in line for a 15% increase over the life of the three-year contract.
Voting, which is being handled online, began Saturday morning and is scheduled to close at 10 a.m. Sunday.
Unifor, the union representing 5,680 Ford workers, along with 14,000 workers at General Motors and Stellantis, owner of Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Chrysler and Fiat, took a traditional approach to bargaining with the Detroit Three compared to the UAW’s targeted so-called Stand Up Strike strategy, picking Ford as the lead company to begin negotiations before turning to the others. The union will announce the next target company after the ratification vote, assuming it passes.
A strike against Ford was seen as a strong possibility in Canada, too, but the Dearborn automaker made what the union described as a substantive offer just before the contract expiration Monday night and the two sides extended their talks past the deadline. Notably, it was only Ford that avoided the latest expansion of the UAW strike, with the union announcing on Friday that workers at GM and Stellantis parts distribution centers would join the picket lines because of progress with Ford in bargaining.
The overview of the agreement provided by the union — Ford said previously it would not provide details — highlights how close union officials felt they were to calling a strike.
“This is an exceptional deal. And it didn’t come easy. It was only in the eleventh hour that Ford came to the union with a substantive offer, and an openness to meaningfully address our priority concerns. They knew we had the leverage in talks. If we struck, the entire Canadian operation would come to a halt — and most of North America too. They knew we were serious, that we had leverage and we would use it. And they came to the pump,” the overview said. “Extending our agreement by 24 hours helped us pull this final deal together — one that has the unanimous backing of your elected master bargaining committee.”
More: Unifor gets tentative contract with Ford in Canada. What's it mean for UAW strike?
Unifor said its top priority in bargaining was pensions. The overview noted that there had been no negotiated increases in that area at Ford since 2005, calling pensions “nonstarter conversations" with the automakers since the Great Recession.