Posted on 10/13/2002 2:37:15 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
Tense contract talks between the Canadian Auto Workers union and DaimlerChrysler Canada grinded to a complete halt Sunday as the union awaited the automaker's first offer.
The offer is to be tabled Monday morning and, until then, ``there's nothing to bargain over," CAW spokeswoman Jane Armstrong said in an interview.
On Saturday, the union suspended local and sub-committee bargaining after a meeting with DaimlerChrysler at which neither side agreed to compromise on a number of key issues.
DaimlerChrysler spokeswoman Kerrey Kerr said the company is ready to talk, but no meetings were scheduled for Sunday.
Meanwhile, a strike deadline, set for midnight Tuesday night, continued to draw closer. The union has been firm in saying the deadline will not be extended.
Contentious issues include workplace "concessions" such as scheduling, overtime and seniority rules and the fact that there is no plan to save the Pillette Road factory in Windsor, Ont., which is threatened with closure when it stops producing Dodge commercial vans next July. About 1,200 union jobs would be lost if the plant closes.
The union says DaimlerChrysler should bring in a new product for the Pillette factory, while the company maintains there is no business case for a new vehicle at the plant.
The union also wants a solution to the layoffs at a 4,200-worker sedan plant in Brampton, Ont., west of Toronto. Union figures suggest that about 900 people are on layoff at that facility.
In a statement issued Sunday, CAW president Buzz Hargrove said: ``If the company tables the economic pattern obtained at (General Motors Canada), but combines it with concessions and no resolution to the issues of Pillette Road and the Brampton laid-off workers, they are putting us on strike."
In what's known as pattern bargaining, the first of the Big Three automakers negotiating a contract with CAW — this time around, it was General Motors Canada — setting a standard on wage, benefit and vacation issues for negotiations with the other two auto giants.
The union has said it has $51 million in its strike war chest. If a strike occurs, it would be the first CAW action at a Big Three company since a 1996 walkout at GM which lasted 22 days.
CAW is bargaining for about 13,000 DaimlerChrysler workers, after hammering out recent deals for Ford and General Motors employees.
In January, DaimlerChrysler announced it would cut 26,000 jobs over three years at its North American Chrysler division, including about 3,000 in Canada.
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