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The Ford logo is seen in this file photo.EDGARD GARRIDO/Reuters

Meeting the demand by Unifor that Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. invest in its engine plant in Windsor, Ont., will be a "challenge," company officials say on the eve of negotiations on a new contract with the union that represents 6,400 workers.

At the moment, the auto maker does not have a new engine to allocate to the Windsor Engine Plant, the officials said. The Windsor Engine Plant is one of two Ford Motor Co. engine plants in the city and is on the endangered list with no new investment slated to be made there and new fuel economy and emissions regulations posing a threat to the 6.8-litre engines assembled at the plant. However, the Essex Engine Plant, also in Windsor, was reopened with new investment.

"The price of entry for consideration [for new investment] is having a competitive agreement and making sure that we have the enablers in place to attract that level of investment on a global stage," a Ford Canada official said in a background briefing Tuesday.

Unifor president Jerry Dias has made new investment in the Canadian operations of the Detroit Three the key demand in talks on a new contract that are scheduled to begin next month. The contracts expire in mid-September.

"I'm sure it's going to be a challenge [in Windsor], but I'm sure they're going to find a way to get it done," Mr. Dias said Tuesday.

"Do I believe it's going to be easy? The answer is no, but ultimately you're dealing with a global corporation that thinks a long way ahead," he said. "So I would expect they've got a solution. If they don't have one today, they're certainly going to have one by the middle of September."

Unifor represents about 1,400 people at the two plants in Windsor. About 250 are on layoff.

The negotiations on a new contract with the Ford, General Motors Co., and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV are the first set of talks in which Mr. Dias has participated as president of Unifor. The union was formed in 2013 with the merger of the Canadian Auto Workers and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.

The demand by Mr. Dias for new investment comes amid red-hot sales in the North American auto market, but also as auto makers spend tens of billions of dollars at new and existing factories in the United States and Mexico and considerably less than that in Canada.

Auto makers invested $18-billion in 2014 in North America, with just $1-billion of that spent in Canada, the Ford official said.

But the official noted that the 2012 labour agreement between what was then CAW and the auto makers opened the door to $1-billion of investment by Ford in Canada and the hiring of 2,000 people at the company's assembly plant in Oakville, Ont., where the Ford Edge and Flex and Lincoln MKX and MKT crossovers are produced.

The key clause in that agreement, the Ford official said, was a so-called grow-in plan that allowed the company to hire new workers at about $20 an hour instead of the rate of more than $30 an hour paid to senior workers. Newly hired employees progress to full wages over a 10-year period.

"That's an example of collaborative problem solving that we came up with where people still have a path to good automotive jobs and we're able to hire at the same time," the Ford official said.

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