Industry leaders are closely monitoring auto labor disputes in Canada and the U.S.
Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, which represents Canadian producers of auto parts, equipment and supplies, said 48 per cent of the parts made in the country are exported, making it difficult for major disputes to break out in the United States. “This will have an immediate impact on Canada's parts industry,” he said. To the country.
“If we stop operations, we'll be idling for another day or two,” he told BNN Bloomberg in a television interview on Friday.
On Friday, the U.S. United Auto Workers union launched a strike against three traditional automakers: Ford, General Motors and Starantis after failing to reach a deal by a midnight deadline. The strike will revolve around one factory in each of the three manufacturers, with the aim of affecting the most profitable vehicles without unduly harming the union's strike funds.
Negotiations between the two sides remain far apart, and the strike could spread to other factories if progress is not made.
Volpe hopes the weekend will give unions and automakers time to take stock of the situation, and expects strike action to be carried out on a rotating basis.
“Rotation reduces the impact on Canadian suppliers,” he said. “If we expand and extend at a particular plant, the company that supplies seats for Jeep production in Ohio may say, 'We have to close that line.'”
Meanwhile, if Unifor and the company fail to reach an agreement, a strike could be held against Ford workers in Canada as early as next Tuesday.
“We're not worried. Obviously, we're not going to ignore that that might be what the unions want to do or that there's an impasse between the two companies. But we're here to say that people We have a long history of tough negotiations to get to the table,' and the Ford leadership and the Unifor leadership know each other very well,'' Volpe said.
BNN Bloomberg's Iva Poshunjali with files from Bloomberg News
