How does collective bargaining benefit autoworkers?
Collective bargaining has helped autoworkers secure good wages, pensions, benefits, job security and safer workplaces for nearly a century. By standing together, through their union, autoworkers have fought for and negotiated ground-breaking improvements to work standards. Even in times of crisis, including during the 2008-09 Great Recession (when employers and governments demanded concessionary changes to collective agreements), collective bargaining provided unionized autoworkers the ability to defend their rights and have a voice in shaping their terms and conditions of employment.
The core economic provisions in Unifor’s collective agreements with the Detroit Three automakers, including wages, pensions, health care benefits and income security plans, for instance, are the same, or very similar, across worksites, and between automakers. Wage rates in Unifor represented plants are generally the same. Because of this, employers have little incentive to compete with one another by underpaying workers. By equalizing pay and work standards, autoworkers are also more likely to stand together and support one another, in solidarity.
Unifor strives to ensure standardization of contract terms, through ‘patterned bargaining’ within Canada (see below). However, the union also recognizes the international nature of automaking and the role “free trade agreements” play in driving unfair wage competition between workers, across countries. These and other external political and economic factors create added pressure on Canadian autoworkers at the bargaining table.
