The Canadian Auto Workers union has renewed its attempt to convince workers at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. that they would be better off belonging to a union.
As it knocks on the door at Toyota, the CAW's decades-long unionization drive at Honda of Canada Mfg. has suddenly run up against a similar attempt by its one-time parent organization, the United Auto Workers.
Workers at the two plants in Cambridge, Ont., and Alliston, Ont., respectively, have been targeted by the CAW almost since they first began producing cars in the 1980s, but the union has been unable to persuade 50 per cent of the employees at either plant to sign union cards.
Each of the companies employs about 4,000 production workers in Canada.
In recent years, the number of CAW members in auto production has declined along with a slump in market share — both in Canada and the United States — for the three Detroit-based auto makers and an increase in outsourcing of work by those three companies to parts makers. The number of unionized workers at parts plants has grown.
The renewal of the organizing drive at Toyota Motor Canada comes three years after the CAW thought it had signed up at least 40 per cent of the workers and sought a vote at the plant. When it became clear the union didn't have enough support, it abandoned the effort.
“We do have a hard core of support in Toyota,” CAW president Buzz Hargrove said Monday.
Workers at both plants want to have more of an impact on decisions that affect them in such areas as health and safety, pensions and job security, Mr. Hargrove and other union officials said.
“We got a decent response from our leaflets,” said CAW director of organizing Mike Shields, who recently took over that position after several years as president of Local 222 in Oshawa, Ont.
Mr. Shields wasn't involved in the organizing drive that fell short at Toyota in 2001, so he's not sure what new arguments the union is using to persuade workers this time around.
But one concern, he said, is that the number of contract workers appears to be increasing and they're worried about job prospects in the event of a slowdown.
“The union's going to do what the union's going to do,” said Greig Mordue, a spokesman for Toyota Motor Canada. “What we need to do is be consistent and be persistent with how we manage our operations. We think that we provide a positive place to come to work.”
The issue of pensions has arisen at both companies, Mr. Hargrove said, because workers have seen companies in various industries insisting they can't meet pension obligations.
That doesn't mean unions guarantee that promises on pensions will be kept. Some of the big companies with pension problems also have big unions, such as Stelco Inc. with the United Steelworkers of America and Air Canada, where Mr. Hargrove's own union and others have taken pension hits.
“There's a big difference in our benefit plans,” Mr. Hargrove said. “Their benefits are inferior, their pensions are inferior.”
Jim Miller, senior vice-president for Honda Canada Inc., said the total wage, benefits and pension packages paid to workers in Alliston exceed those paid to employees at DaimlerChrysler Canada Inc., Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. and General Motors of Canada Ltd. assembly plants.
The fact that the CAW has been unable to recruit enough members in Alliston indicates that “we're meeting most of the associates' expectations,” Mr. Miller said.
The CAW's campaign to recruit workers at the Honda plant has lasted almost as long as its existence as a separate union from the UAW. The two divorced in the 1980s, leaving the UAW with two locals and about 3,700 members, mainly in southwestern Ontario.
“The UAW never left Canada,” Gord Lilley, an organizer with the two locals said in explaining one reason behind the union's campaign in Alliston, which began in October.
People inside the plant called seeking representation, Mr. Lilley said.
“Their main issue is that they want to have a say in the workplace and they want to have a legal and binding contract,” Mr. Lilley said of the Honda employees who have signed on. He wouldn't say how many have signed UAW cards.
“We don't want to make this about competing with the CAW,” he said. “It's about helping the workers.”
