The union representing Canadian autoworkers at Ford has reached a tentative deal with the US automaker, keeping the more than 5,000 union members on the job and providing some good news for an industry dealing with unprecedented labor disruptions.
Details of the deal between Ford and Unifor, the Canadian union, were not immediately available. But it is likely very is good news for Ford, which is already grappling with a strike by more than 3,000 of its US employees, and facing the possible expansion of the US strike this coming Friday.
Unifor had been prepared to go on strike late Monday night until a last-minute offer from Ford led to a 24-hour extension of its union contract and an extra day of negotiations.
“We leveraged our union’s most powerful weapon: the right to strike,” Unifor said in its statement Tuesday evening. “When faced with the prospect of an all-out strike… the company made a significant offer to the union.”
The union said its bargaining committee has unanimously recommended the deal to the union’s rank-and-file membership for a ratification vote. Ford was limited in its comment on the deal Tuesday evening ahead of that vote.
“To respect the ratification process, Ford of Canada will not discuss the specifics of the tentative agreement,” the company said in a statement.
A strike would have shut Ford’s three Canadian factories as well as numerous parts distribution centers, halting production of the Ford Edge and Lincoln Nautilus SUVs, which are built at an assembly plant outside of Toronto, as well as two models of the V-8 engine that are built in two engine factories in Windsor, Ontario, just across the river from Detroit.
The lack of those engines would have halted production of two of the company’s top models at US factories – the best selling F Series pickups and the Mustang sports car. In some ways, a strike in Canada would have been more consequential for Ford sales than the strike at the one US factory in Wayne, Michigan, where more than 3,000 United Auto Workers members have been on strike since Friday.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
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