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Workers at Cami Assembly in Ingersoll say they’re looking for some stability as they bargain with GM Canada on a new collective agreement.
Unifor Local 88, the union representing about 1,300 workers at the Ingersoll plant, has been in talks with the company for about a week but full-time negotiations began Sunday, said Mike Van Boekel, chairperson of the local.
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Now workers are scheduled for two-week shifts and then have two weeks off work. The union wants stability and a return to full-time hours for its workers, Van Boekel said.
“We’ve been rotating shifts for about three years and we want job stability,” he said. “We want to get the plant running again full-time and address monetary needs, too. It’s been a tough go the last three years.”
When workers are off the job for two weeks they get 65 per cent of their pay as a combination of unemployment benefits and a supplementary fund from the employer. The union is trying to negotiate that to 70 per cent.
The plant assembles two versions of the BrightDrop, a fully electric commercial van. Van Boekel said of the vehicle’s role in their workload: “The orders are picking up. We can also slow the line down so we can get people back to full-time shifts.”
As for other issues, the union is asking for increases to wages, benefits and pension.
In 2023, Unifor struck a deal with GM Canada on a new contract for its other Canadian plants and workers. That deal includes general wage increases in each year of the agreement with 10 per cent in year one, two per cent in year two and three per cent in year three. The cost of living allowance (COLA) will also be reinstated in December 2024.
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By the end of the three-year agreement, a top-rate production assembler will be paid $44.52 per hour and a skilled trades worker will be paid $55.97 per hour.
The deadline for a deal at Cami is Sept. 17.
At the Ingersoll plant, Unifor has about 200 members working full-time in a battery assembly plant on-site, building batteries for the BrightDrop. In addition, it has about 450 members rotating on and off work every two weeks in the assembly plant and nearly 200 skilled trades workers employed full-time in the assembly plant.
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