TORONTO, Sept. 30 — The Ford Motor Company and the Canadian Auto Workers union said today that they had agreed on a tentative three-year contract covering 13,300 workers at Ford plants in Canada.þþThe new contract's provisions on pay and benefits follow closely the pattern set in a deal reached earlier this month by the union and General Motors, including wage increases of 3 percent in each of the first two years and 2 percent in the third year of the contract. Each worker will receive a signing bonus of 1,000 Canadian dollars ($630).þþThe talks with Ford had been expected to be complicated by the company's plans to close a plant in Oakville, Ontario, west of Toronto, that builds F-150 pickup trucks. The closing, with the loss of 1,400 jobs, is part of a cost-cutting drive at Ford plants across North America.þþFord said it had agreed to transfer 900 of the truck plant's workers to a nearby minivan assembly line, which will be expanded at a cost of 600 million Canadian dollars ($378 million) to produce a new Mercury minivan model. A third shift will be added to the minivan plant in late 2004; the closing of the pickup truck plant has been pushed back six months, to July 2004, under the deal.þþAlain Batty, president of Ford's Canadian unit, said at a news conference today that the proposed investment in the minivan line would ÿrevitalizeÿ the Oakville plant. The company has agreed not to dismantle the pickup truck assembly line for the time being, and has held out the prospect of modifying the Oakville complex to permit it to produce several models on the same line.þþFor the first time in decades, bargaining is not taking place simultaneously in the United States and Canada. The Big Three automakers' American plants have four-year agreements, expiring next year, with the United Automobile Workers.þþEach of the Big Three closely integrates its American and Canadian operations, with assembly lines in each country producing parts and vehicles for the entire North American market. A strike in Canada would reverberate at many vehicle and parts plants in the United States.þþBuzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian union, said he did not expect that the U.A.W. would ÿsee much that's a pattern for themÿ in the deals his union struck with General Motors and Ford. Still, Mr. Hargrove said, ÿnothing in this agreement will entail moving work from the United States to Canada.ÿþþCarlos Gomes, an economist who watches the auto industry for the Bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto, said the union ÿdid get most of the things it was attempting to get.ÿ Ford's operations in the two countries were the most integrated of the Big Three's, he said, making Ford most vulnerable to a strike in Canada.þþA ratification vote on the Ford contract will be held this weekend. The union is then scheduled to start negotiations with DaimlerChrysler, in which the main issue is likely to be the future of a van plant in Windsor; no model is scheduled to be built there beyond mid-2003. Mr. Hargrove said the union would announce a strike deadline at DaimlerChrysler on Oct. 7.þþMr. Hargrove said he was confident that no layoffs would be needed at Oakville. An improved retirement incentive totaling 60,000 Canadian dollars ($37,800) would probably encourage at least 500 older workers to retire there, he said, creating openings for workers who would otherwise be laid off.þþUnder the existing contract, the base wage at Ford is 27.70 Canadian dollars ($17.46) an hour for assembly line workers, and 33.10 Canadian dollars ($20.86) an hour for electricians, mechanics and other trades.þþThe auto industry has broken sales records in both the United States and Canada this year with the help of generous discounts and interest-free financing deals. However, September sales are expected to show a slight slackening, reflecting some analysts' concern that the market may be nearly saturated.þþMr. Gomes said that given the present strength of automotive sales and the fierce competition among manufacturers, a strike in Canada would cost any of the Big Three companies much more than acceding to the union's demands would.þþ
Source: NY Times
