Negotiating job security and capital investments in response to deindustrialization: the case of Canada’s auto sector

ABSTRACT

Job security has always been a paramount concern for the trade union movement. This article explores the ways that unions used collective bargaining to gain a measure of job security for their members in the face of deindustrialization as unionized factories in North America began to close in large numbers after the 1970s. These new measures included advance notice, severance pay, plant closing moratoria, restrictions placed on plant movements, transfer rights, and expanding the scope of collective ‘social’ bargaining to cover training and adjustment. In some sectors, such as automotive, collective bargaining has also been extended into areas normally left to management. The price was often high. Eventually some unions, notably the Canadian Auto Workers (established 1985; part of Unifor after 2013), prioritized winning new capital investments and product lines for unionized plants in their negotiations, though often at the cost of jobs, wage freezes or reductions, and other concessions. By focusing upon auto sector deindustrialization in Canada since the 1980s, we draw lessons from more recent union bargaining strategies, and how they constitute an important element of worker responses to industrial job loss and manufacturing closure.

KEYWORDS:

• Bargaining
• Unifor
• Canadian auto workers
• investment
• deindustrialization

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Han-Yi Huang and Nicholas Fast for research assistance, and William Gillies for creating the map. Research funding was provided by the Deindustrialization and the Politics of our Time (DePOT) network through a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Grant.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In all, 125 bills were introduced in 30 US states between 1975 and 1983, but only those in Maine, Wisconsin and Hawaii passed into law. However, even there, advance notice or severance pay laws were rarely enforced. Ehrenberg and JAKUBSON (1989), 61. The record of ‘relatively poor compliance’ with Maine’s advance notice legislation is well documented. Maine’s first law enacted in September 1971 required 1 month notice (100+workers), then amended in 1973 so that notice was dropped in favour of severance for those with more than 5 years service. Amended again, in 1975 when businesses required to give notice to the state Bureau of Labour 60 days beforehand. The 1981 amendment required 60 days notice to employees. Of the 30 plants that closed during that time, only 7 notified the state. Of 16 companies required to pay severance, seven did not. Folbre et al. (1984), 185; Schippani (1987). Wisconsin’s 60-day notice law was never enforced and in 1983 it was no longer made mandatory. Rothstein (1986), 28.

2. William D. Ford, a Democratic Party congressman from Michigan, introduced legislation 11 times in Congress to help prevent plant closings. None of his motions got more than 85 co-sponsors and not one reached the floor of the House of Representatives. Ford (1985).

3. The WARN Act required 60 days notification in cases involving at least 500 workers or more than one-third of the workforce. Addison (1986), 392–3.

4. In 2013, the CAW merged with Communications, Energy, and Paper Workers Union to create Unifor.

5. Source: various sources, including the Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, and Mordue and Sweeney (2017).

6. This table is compiled from a wide range of sources, including collective agreements, union and firm announcements, and newspaper sources such as the Detroit Free Press, Toronto Star, Windsor Star, Automotive News, Globe and Mail.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes on contributors

Dimitry Anastakis

Dimitry Anastakis is the LR Wilson/RJ Currie Chair in Canadan History in the Department of History and the Rotman School of Management. His most recent books include Dream Car: Malcolm Bricklin’s Fantastic SV1, and the End of Industrial Modernity (Toronto: UTP, 2024), written as an “open road” and includes a playlist, and The North American Auto Industry since NAFTA (Toronto: UTP, 2024)

Steven High

Steven High leads the Deindustrialization & the Politics of Our Time research network and founded the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling at Concordia University, where he is Professor in the Department of History. His most recent book is Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence and Class (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022)