Workers at Titan Tool and Die in Windsor are marking 100 days of being locked out by the company.
On Tuesday morning, Unifor National President Lana Payne joined the workers, represented by Unifor Local 195, for a rally outside the plant on Howard Avenue. The rally then moved into a rolling caravan as the workers drove in a loop for two hours between the plant and downtown Windsor to raise awareness about their situation.
Payne says this is the longest dispute that they've had in the automotive industry in Windsor, surpassing Windsor's 99-day Ford strike of 1945.
The union represents 60 members, with 27 active members and the rest laid off, who have been locked out since August 11 after contract talks failed.
Payne says this employer has done things that most employers don't do, and we need to push back against these kinds of actions.
"Taking equipment out of a plant in the middle of the night, coming to a bargaining table and not bargaining in good faith, putting concessions on that table, and then locking out our members and not coming clean with what it is they're going to do with this facility," she says. "Are they going to open it again? Are they committed to working and having this plant in Canada? Are they just going to shift our jobs and our investment to the United States?"
"Where do you draw, as a government, a line in the sand and say we're going to use every tool that we have at our disposal to make sure this doesn't happen? They can penalize companies; they can do all sorts of things to make sure companies like Titan Tool do not get away with these kinds of actions." she says.
In early October, the workers rejected 15 pages of concessions that the employer is seeking that included a proposed wage freeze, elimination of cost-of-living language, elimination of an annual lump sum payment, elimination of retiree benefits, rollback of benefits, mandatory overtime, removal of seniority rights, and concessions around pensions.
Titan Tool and Die Unit Chairperson Randy St. Pierre, who's worked at the plant for 33 years, says they are out here until the end, until the company decides the concessions are off the table.
"We even said we just want to go a year; let's just go a year. No concessions, no nothing on the table, just a status quo contract to get through the year and continue to bargain through it, and they don't want to even do that," he says. "Where's their good faith in this bargaining process? We have good faith; we reach out to them once a month."
The lockout has featured multiple blockades and court-ordered injunctions to end the actions, including one in March where union members blocked a transport from leaving Titan Tool and Die's main gates after they learned the company moved equipment across the border.