BY JOANNE WALLADOR

STE-THÉRESE, Quebec-Members of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) approved a contract with General Motors October 23, ending a 20-day strike by 26,000 workers.

The agreement, which had already been approved by the CAW Bargaining Committee, gives GM the go-ahead to sell two parts plants in Windsor and Oshawa, Ontario. As part of the agreement, workers who go with the new owner will receive their current wages for the next three years, and current pensions and benefits for the next nine years.

According to the contract, GM is not supposed to outsource to contractors hundreds of jobs as they had planned. But GM officials said the agreement allows the automaker to reduce the number of workers it employs because of changes in technology, productivity gains, a market share decline, or if a certain product line is discontinued.

Under the agreement, workers will get an annual wage increase of 2 percent in addition to regular cost-of-living increases. They will also receive a $350 signing bonus. Same-sex partners of CAW members will be eligible to receive health and other non- pension benefits. Mandatory overtime at the remaining Oshawa facilities will be eliminated, although the company retains the right to assign workers at one plant to voluntary overtime at a second plant.

The stakes for GM in this strike were high. While GM's profits for the third quarter of 1996 were $1.27 billion, up from $642 million for the same period last year, they only earn $200 per vehicle produced in North America as compared to Chrysler's $1,000, according to one analyst. In preparation for the walkout, GM amassed a $13 billion cash reserve and stockpiled parts to keep its U.S. assembly operations going.

The strike, which idled all of GM's operations in Canada and nearly 20,000 GM workers in the United States and Mexico, is expected to reduce the company's fourth quarter earnings by about 60 cents a share and result in 90,000 units in lost production. But analysts say GM will probably be able to make up for most of the lost production over the coming months. "This is not going to keep us from being able to perform," Dean Munger, GM's chief Canadian negotiator, said. GM shares on the New York Stock Exchange rose 75 cents on news of the settlement.

"Temporary workers with low wages"
"GM doesn't want to have thirty-year people any more. They want temporary workers who they can pay lower wages," said striker Francois Poiré, a 17-year veteran with GM, who has been laid off from four different GM plants in Canada and has already received his layoff notice from the giant Oshawa complex. Strikers totally blocked access to the South Oshawa complex on October 16 after hearing of GM's strong third quarter earnings. GM was obliged to use helicopters to bring maintenance workers into the plant. Meanwhile, workers occupied the North Oshawa plant to prevent the company from moving dies out of the plant in order to move production elsewhere.

At the Ste-Thérese plant here which makes the Camaro and Firebird sports cars, half of the 2,900 CAW members have been laid off for the past year with only one shift operating. Obligatory overtime of up to 50 hours a week has helped GM avoid calling back workers. The Ste-Thérese plant is the only auto assembly plant in Quebec. The Quebec government granted GM a $220-million interest free loan to keep the plant open in 1987. The car maker has also benefited from tax breaks estimated at more than $100 million.

Since 1992, GM has slashed the number of its money-losing parts plants from fifty to fourteen. An article in the June 3 Wall Street Journal said GM is preparing to cut deeper by "spinning off" its Delphi parts division.

Workers offer solidarity
Eight carloads of striking newspaper workers from the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News, as well as four vans of UAW members and a truckload of food and supplies descended on the picket lines at the GM Windsor facilities in Windsor on Canadian Thanksgiving Day in mid-October.

Lambert Roy, one of 120 employees laid off from the Mackie company in Quebec as a result of the GM strike, told the Montreal daily, La Presse, "If I was in the same situation, I would fight as well."

Katy LeRougetel, a member of CAW Local 187 in Montreal, Marie-Claire David in Montreal, and Mitra Sharma in Toronto contributed to this article.  
 
 
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