Automotive News Canada - November 2020 - 28

* N O V E M B E R 2 020

FCA to invest in electrification, and PSA needs EVs
CONTINUED FROM PA GE 1

Chrysler Pacifica and its hybrid model.
The spending plans are notable coming from
FCA, which is on track to merge with PSA by the
first quarter of 2021. The merger, which will form a
new company called Stellantis, was spurred in part
by FCA's desire to pool resources as electrification
accelerates and to modernize its
platforms.

MUTUALLY ADVANTAGEOUS GOALS
" I'm curious if it's not a shared
platform with PSA because FCA
doesn't have an electric platform
and PSA does, " said Sam Fiorani,
vice-president of global vehicle forecasting at U.S.-based AutoForecast
Solutions LLC.
" FCA has not been shy about not Kingston:
Government
wanting to design their own EVs,
investment
and PSA is not shy about having
sends a
a whole line of them. If FCA needs
" strong
one, they can go through ... PSA
message " that
and add that. "
Canada wants
The Unifor negotiations were
to produce
the final round of union talks for
vehicles.
FCA before it merges with PSA.
FILE PHOTO
The three-year contract with
Unifor, which will still apply under
Stellantis, also includes a $50-million investment at
the FCA assembly plant in Brampton, Ont., which
will continue to build the Chrysler 300 sedan and the
Dodge Charger and Challenger.
The investment was framed by Unifor President
Jerry Dias as a major win for the union and its
members following months of uncertainty. About
1,500 workers were laid off at Windsor earlier this
year after one of three shifts was cut amid slumping
minivan sales, and the plant was shut down multiple times in 2020 to align production with demand.
During the first three quarters of 2020, minivan sales
in Canada were down 31 per cent from a year earlier, while U.S. sales slipped 36 per cent.

DEPENDENT ON GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
FCA's investment in Windsor is contingent upon
" government financial support, " according to a letter from FCA Canada to Unifor that outlines FCA's

investment and product commitments under the
new contract.
As of press time, no government assistance had
been announced, though FCA and the federal and
Ontario governments were believed to be in discussions. The federal and provincial governments
combined to give Ford $590 million for its Oakville
investment, accounting for about 33 per cent of the
projected cost of the program. That compares with
about 20 per cent government support for other
recent automaker investments.
" To see government investing in the sector is critically important, and I think
it sends a strong message
around the world that Canada
is and wants to continue to
be a player in the automotive industry. There's a huge
symbolic importance in doing
that, " said Brian Kingston,
CEO of the Canadian Vehicle
Manufacturers' Association, which represents the
Detroit Three in Canada.
The investment, which would begin in 2023 with
about 38 weeks of ramp-up, was expected to bring
back the Windsor plant's third
shift, fulfilling a major goal for
Unifor in this year's negotiations.
About 2,000 jobs would potentially be added to the plant by 2024,
according to FCA.

WORKFORCE EXPANSION
The union said about 425 workers who remain on layoff from
Sweeney:
this year's third-shift cut would be
FCA might
recalled.
have to get
Between the new hires and
creative to
expected retirements in the next
find enough
four years, the Windsor workworkers to
force could look much different
fill new jobs
than it does today, said Brendan
at Windsor
Sweeney, managing director of the
Assembly.
Trillium Network for Advanced
FILE PHOTO
Manufacturing, a London, Ont.,
nonprofit dedicated to promoting manufacturing in
Ontario. Hiring so many new workers gives FCA a
chance to diversify its workforce, he said.

FCA said it would build
battery-electric " and/or "
plug-in hybrid vehicles on
a new platform in Windsor
beginning in 2024. The
company currently builds
the Chrysler Pacifica plug-in
hybrid. P H O T O S : F C A

" If FCA's thinking it's got to hire [thousands of]
more people in the next six years, you're not going
to do it with men alone. And you're not going to do
it only with people that are 40 or older. You're going
to get younger, and you're going to get more diverse,
which is a good thing in my opinion. "
Given the Windsor plant's location near the
United States border and its distance from other
major Canadian cities, FCA might have to get creative to find enough workers to fill all those roles,
Sweeney said.

FINDING STAFF IS A GOOD PROBLEM TO HAVE
" You're going to need to hire a lot of new people, and the Windsor labour [pool is] unlike the
Brampton " pool, he said, referring to the Toronto
suburb.
" Take Brampton or Oakville or Cambridge and
draw a circle around them, and you've got a lot more
land and a lot more people in that labour [pool]. In
Windsor, you're limited. "
Still, for Unifor, that's a good problem to have,
considering the alternative.
" Where are we going to find people? How are we
going to do the hiring? There's a lot more positive
spin on those questions than if everyone lost their
jobs, " Sweeney said. - ANC

Liberal report card: Spending on the future, but what about now?
CONTINUED FROM PA GE 26

add the Lexus NX crossover to
its Cambridge, Ont., plant as
signs that the attention paid to
the sector by the federal and
Ontario governments is paying off.
As well, General Motors
and Unifor reached a tentative agreement that will inject
between $1 billion and $1.3 billion to restart vehicle production at the Oshawa assembly
plant near Toronto. Vehicle
production stopped in 2019,
costing 2,300 union jobs. The
assembly line, which would
build popular lightand heavy-duty
pickups, would
begin next year.
Under the
USMCA, the rules
of origin have been tightened.
NAFTA required 62.5 per
cent regional content; under
USMCA it's 66 per cent in 2020
and rises to 75 per cent by
2023. Also included is a stipulation that the workers involved
make at least US $16 an hour.
That, Volpe said, has tilted the continent back to the
Great Lakes region, with benefits felt in both Ontario and
Michigan.

" I give [government]
full credit on renegotiating
NAFTA. At all stages, they
consulted with industry. We
were very intimate with each
other throughout that period. "

CREDIT UNIFOR, NOT FEDS
Not everyone is singing
praise, however. Brian Masse,
an NDP member of Parliament
for Windsor-West and the party's auto-sector critic, said
Unifor deserves the lion's
share of credit for recent gains
and characterized the federal
and provincial governments'
role as merely " not getting in
the way, which
in itself is an
improvement. "
David Adams,
CEO of the Global
Automakers of
Canada, which represents foreign automakers, was critical
of the federal government's
moves to push carmakers in
Canada toward EVs. The small
market, he said, currently
means few customers for those
made-in-Canada products.
" The EV market is three
per cent, and 80 per cent of
Canada's production goes to
the United States, so you've
got to find a market for those

ONE YEAR LATER

SPOTLIGHT

zero-emission vehicles, "
Adams said. " Would it not be
better to let the market develop first? "
Yet he commended Ottawa
for its moves
in negotiating the continental trade
agreement.
" They did
an exemplary
job of bringing industry
to the table, "
Masse: Unifor he said.
A spokesgets the credit
man for fedfor progress,
eral Industry
while the
Minister
provincial
and federal
Navdeep
governments
Bains pointmerely stayed ed to the govout of the way. ernment's
FILE PHOTO
Innovation
and Skills
Plan. Since 2015, that plan has
attracted $10 billion in investment to Canada's auto sector, said the spokesman, John
Power.
In addition, the government
is committed to expanding the
country's capacity to build
batteries and EV components,
Power said.
" The most recent invest-

ments announced by Ford and
Fiat Chrysler demonstrate
that our strategy is attracting the kind of forward-looking investments that position
Canada as a leading jurisdiction in building the vehicles of
the future, " he said.

WHERE'S THE AUTO STRATEGY?
MP Masse, however, said
it was the tough negotiations
by Unifor that led to the FCA,
Ford and GM announcements.
It is also the union that is leading the way to save jobs at
the Nemak aluminum plant
in Windsor, Ont., which was
targeted for shutdown by its
Mexico-based parent company.
" It's a little disingenuous
for government to be taking
credit for gains that have been
made on the backs of workers, " he said.
Canada's sector still lacks a
comprehensive auto strategy,
Masse said. Work to develop
such a plan by Ray Tanguay,
former president of Toyota
Motor Manufacturing Canada
and an adviser to the federal
and Ontario provincial governments, has been ignored,
the MP said.
Tanguay could not be
reached for comment.

Adams: Critical of the federal
push to EVs when the
market is not yet there.
FILE PHOTO

Unifor's Dias, however,
said the government's move to
prioritize green and advanced
mobility technology shows an
interest too often lacking in a
sector as important as autos.
" This is the first time we're
having a conversation that's
meaningful, not only in theory, " he said. " Am I pleased?
Yes. " - ANC

Automotive News Canada - November 2020

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