GM reaches deal to end Canada strike, resume production

epa05792441 (FILE) - Flags flying outside the General Motors (GM) World Headquarters in the Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan, USA, 19 November 2008 (reissued 14 February 2017). According to media reports on 14 February 2017, French carmaker PSA Group is exploring the acquisition of General Motor's European Opel brand.  EPA/JEFF KOWALSKY

Bloomberg

General Motors Co. and its union in Canada reached an agreement to resolve an almost monthlong strike, a crucial step towards the largest US automaker resuming production of one if its top models.
The carmaker and the Unifor union announced the tentative accord in statements that didn’t give details or say when workers will vote on ratification. Employees at GM’s plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, had been on strike since September 17, compromising output of the Chevrolet Equinox sport utility vehicle that the company redesigned earlier this year.
A representative for Unifor said the union was aiming
to hold the ratification vote as early as Monday, dependent
on securing a venue large enough to accommodate its membership.
The union had demanded GM designate the factory the lead producer of the Equinox, which the company also makes in Mexico.
The two sides were at an impasse just as trade negotiators haggled over changes to Nafta, which the Unifor and the United Auto Workers unions have criticised for enabling companies to take advantage of lower wages in the southernmost country on the continent.
“This strike has shown all of Canada why a renewed North American Free Trade Agreement must address the needs of working people first,” Unifor President Jerry Dias said in a statement on the union’s website. Implemented in 1994, Nafta brought low-cost Mexico into the flow of tariff-free auto trade on the continent.
Canada lost more than 53,000 automotive jobs from 2001 to 2014 before employment rebounded slightly, according to the Automotive Policy Research Centre at McMaster University.
The Equinox is GM’s top-selling SUV in the U.S., with deliveries climbing 22 percent through the first nine months of the year.
The Detroit-based company moved output of its GMC Terrain SUV from the Ingersoll plant to Mexico in July, leading to layoffs of 600 workers.

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