Jeep parent Stellantis NV and its unionized workers should resume labour talks, Industry Minister Melanie Joly urged Friday.
“They need to get back to the negotiation table, and they can find a really trustworthy partner in myself and the government to make sure that they get to a deal,” Joly told reporters in Ottawa.
A collective agreement between Stellantis and Unifor , which represents about 9,000 unionized employees at the company’s factories in Canada, expires Sunday. The two parties have been at an impasse since last week, when armored-vehicle maker Roshel Inc. said it had signed a memo that outlines steps toward buying an idled Toronto-area plant from Stellantis.
The defence supplier is trying to get a Canadian military contract to build light utility vehicles, and has said it could bring back workers quickly to the Brampton facility if it’s successful.
Unifor opposes the transaction, which “should be met with fierce resistance from the federal government,” it said in a letter to Joly dated Wednesday.
Joly said Friday that the government “didn’t participate in any form of negotiation or endorsement whatsoever” with regards to talks between Roshel and Stellantis.
As a result of the impasse, “strike action remains a real possibility,” Unifor National President Lana Payne said at a news conference Thursday, though the union hopes to reach a tentative settlement without it. The same morning, Stellantis sent a letter to workers at its plant in Brampton, Ontario, saying it sees “no long-term business case” for making cars there. The facility has not produced vehicles since late 2023.
The Canadian government had given hundreds of millions of dollars in financial help to Stellantis in return for production promises.
“When it comes to the Stellantis plant, my position has always been clear: That plant needs to reopen. We need a new model. If not, we’ll get our money back,” Joly said.