Bargaining between the Big Three Automakers and Unifor don't start until August 11, but Local 444 is already hard at work putting together a list of demands from the membership at the Windsor Assembly Plant.
Local 444 President Dino Chiodo says the union asks members to fill out a paper with their demands, and they can run the gamut from the minutiae of plant operations to assurances of future investment. An increase in wages is also on the list.
"Everything from shoe allowances to lump sums to wage increases to benefit increases," he says.
Chiodo says the auto industry has performed well since coming out of bankruptcy in 2009, but a lot has changed since then, and the industry is still vulnerable.
"Knowing that we almost didn't survive a bankruptcy, it's not hard to get there again if you don't make wise decisions."
He says it should help at the bargaining table that the Canadian dollar is trading at about $0.76 U.S.
"There's about a 40-cent savings for every penny the dollar is less than the American dollar per hour.
Chiodo says once bargaining gets underway, members of the negotiating team will spend as much as a month and a half at a hotel in Toronto trying to reach a deal for thousands of autoworkers across the country at Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles, Ford Canada and General Motors.
