Unifor has announced that Ford Motor Company will be the target company to set the pattern in contract negotiations with the Detroit Three automakers.
Unifor national president Lana Payne made the announcement Tuesday in Toronto.
The union opened contract talks with Stellantis, Ford Motor Company and General Motors on Aug. 10 as negotiations focus on new three-year contracts for 18,000 unionized workers employed by the Detroit 3 automakers.
Payne says back on Aug. 10, she shared she was considering Ford as the target company after being encouraged by Ford Motor Company's transparency with the union on product programs and businesses programs.
She was also encouraged that Ford publicly stated their desire to lead and to craft a blueprint for the EV future knowing full well our priorities coming into these talks.
Payne says she's concluded that the best opportunity for the union's 18,000 members in the auto sector to achieve bargaining objectives is with the Ford Motor Company.
"In the course of talks, Ford Motor Company articulated to us it's own vision and framework," she says. "Although, as we will always expect this, there are certainly areas of disagreement, there were also areas of alignment. This is important."
The national union has listed pensions, wages, transition plans as autoworkers shift to producing electric vehicles, and confirmation of new investment and product lines as key priorities in talks.
Payne told the news conference that the union's Ford committees have made significant progress in a very short amount of time at sub-committee tables and local bargaining tables.
"This showed me how serious the company was about taking the lead, walking the walk and not just talking the talk," she says.
Payne says we also feel we are in a very strong bargaining position with the company.
"Oakville is a centre piece of Ford's EV ambitions in North America. The Windsor operations produce some of the most sought after engines and component parts for the most lucrative vehicles in the Ford line-up," she says.
The Ford Motor Company operations in Windsor-Essex help produce the 6.8-litre and the 7.3-litre engines for use in the F-Series of pick-up trucks.
The current agreements are set to expire Sept. 18.
Unionized members with all three automakers voted this past weekend in favour of strike action to back contract demands.