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Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers, Canada's largest in the private sector, will step down earlier than anticipated. Hargrove wasn't expected to retire until he reached the CAW's mandatory age of 65 next year. It's tough to resist the allure of cuddling with Yorkies, Bingo every Monday night, and shuffleboard to fill in those long, wistful hours recalling the glory days of torquing valve covers in Windsor, so Hargrove has accelerated his departure to mid-September. No replacement candidate has been named yet, though an endorsee will be announced later today. Come this fall, keep an eye out on the golf courses of Florida for a relaxed looking guy drinking a Molson, eh?

[Source: Automotive News – Sub Req, Photo: media.canada.com]

Shortly after reaching an agreement with Ford, the Canadian Auto Workers union announced the rather surprising news that it had reached tentative agreements with both General Motors and Chrysler. These deals come about four months before the deadline for a deal was to be hit and stand in stark contrast to the protracted negotiations that recently took place between the Big Three and the CAW's American counterpart, the UAW. Under the new deal, GM promises to keep its Oshawa, Ontario plant open until 2012 and offers buyouts worth up to $125,000 to workers at the Windsor transmission plant, which will soon be shut down. Chrysler, for its part, agreed to continue producing minivans at its Windsor assembly site, continue producing the 300C in Brampton, Ontario and keep its Toronto casting plant open until 2011.

CAW President Buzz Hargrove calls the tentative deals "a win-win" for both the union workers and the automakers. Union workers in Canada will get the chance to vote on the contracts later this month. A GM vote is planned for Friday, May 16. Chrysler's contract vote will follow on Saturday, May 17.

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req'd]

We've been hearing for some time now that Buzz Hargrove and the CAW didn't want to have anything to do with the two-tier wage structure or health car plans that the UAW agreed to. Before the landmark labor contracts were ratified in the States, American auto manufacturers enjoyed the cheaper cost of building cars in Canada, and because that difference in manufacturing cost was no longer a factor, it appeared that the CAW and Detroit could be in for a long and messy fight. That may not be the case, though, as word comes from our unionized-friends up north that the CAW and Ford have already agreed in principle to the major points of their upcoming contract, a whopping five months ahead of schedule.

According to Automotive News, the union is expecting a deal to be done by the end of the week. We can surmise that the deal does not include a multi-tiered wage structure, though. "We were not going to do a tier-two and if Ford had insisted it would have resulted in a fight," says Hargrove. The CAW did, however, agree to give up 40 hours of vacation time per year, a supplemental health care fund and a reduced entry-wage for new-hires. Ford will compensate CAW workers with a single payment of $3,500 for the lost vacation time and a $2,200 bonus if the contract is ratified at the plant-level. Ford also promises to keep the St. Thomas plant open until at least 2011 as opposed to the current plan of 2010. See the press release after the break for all the juicy details.

[Source: Automotive News - Sub. Req., CAW]

Buzz Hargrove isn't mincing words about his opinion of Chrysler LLC's strategy. Calling the decision to send the Magnum and Pacifica models out to pasture and cut shifts and jobs at the Brampton, Ontario plant "stupid," Hargrove has said the Canadian Auto Workers aren't interested in the type of concessions the UAW recently agreed to. While the UAW is allowing new hires to be given a lower pay level, as well as taking on a health care trust fund, the CAW will be having none of that, according to Hargrove.

Cuts were expected, but Chrysler's recent scaling back is more than necessary, according to Hargrove, who counters that what the company's really trying to do is reduce supply in order to drive up demand and keep prices higher. It sounds like a good way to make the automaker profitable, thinning the lineup and trimming overproduction. The problem, according to The Buzz, is that Chrysler's plan is anathema to the long union tradition of providing jobs that pay well enough to allow a solid middle class life for autoworkers. With the pay cuts, Hargrove says that autoworkers will no longer be able to afford to buy the cars they build. The recent fall of the dollar isn't helping matters, and will likely give Chrysler another point to argue when asking for concessions. The Canadian Auto Workers will begin duking it out with Detroit in July, so expect the rhetoric to become even more heated in the months to come.

[Source: Automotive News - Sub. Req.]

At 1:30PM today, Canadian Auto Workers (the Canadian counterpart to the UAW) president Buzz Hargrove gave a press conference responding to the UAW strike today against General Motors. In Hargrove's mind, a worst case scenario could see anywhere between 80,000 and 100,000 Canadian workers unemployed as a result of the strike. Hargrove seemed to blame General Motors for shifting the hardships caused by what he called "unfair imports" onto its workers, and he surmised the automaker will use the same strategy when it begins talks with the CAW to renegotiate its contracts next year.
As for the near term effect of the strike, Hargrove said the impact on Canadian plants will be immediate. GM Canada's No. 1 plant in Oshawa will stop making the Chevy Impala at 3AM EST Tuesday. The No. 2 Oshawa plant will stop making the Pontiac Grand Prix and Buick Allure (LaCrosse) at the end of the business day on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the highly profitable Oshawa truck plant that makes the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra has enough inventory to last about three days. Unfortunately, the GM Transmission plant in Windsor has already shut down, and another powertrain component plant in St. Catherine's, Ontario will stop altogether shortly, as well.

As for whether or not the strike is a "token strike" or will have the legs to last a significant amount of time, Hargrove said, "I think this thing's going to drag on for a while."

[Source: Canadian Press]

Things are not looking good for American automakers' plants in Windsor, Ontario. Canadian Auto Workers Union head Buzz Hargrove was upset when Ford shut down a plant in Windsor a while back, and now he's directing his frustration towards General Motors. Recently, St. Catherines, also in Canada and represented by the CAW, was awarded a new contract to build transmissions for GM. St. Catherines had never had a contract to build transmissions for GM before, and the CAW was expecting the Windsor plant to get that contract. The Windsor plant now has no product to build and nothing in the pipeline, and Hargrove is threatening more than just a strike: a total take-down of General Motors. The union would like to see a new product there, not something that will take another plant down in lieu of Windsor. Read more about that here. We'll give you a few choice phrases from Hargrove and Chris Buckley, president of Local 222, after the jump. They sound pretty serious about this, as you'll read.

[Source: The Windsor Star via Autospies]

You didn't want to cross paths with Canadian Auto Workers President Buzz Hargrove on Monday after he found out that Chrysler had been sold to the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. The CAW prez was absolutely livid, pissed even, that the CAW was never consulted, not even informally, about the deal.

Well, Chrysler Corp. CEO Tom LaSorda and Cerberus CEO Stephen Feinberg met with Hargrove today to smooth things over. They guaranteed Hargrove in writing that no Canadian auto worker jobs would be lost as a result of the sale. We think "as a result of the sale" is the key phrase in that sentence, as there are plenty of other reasons one could imagine for reducing a workforce: slow sales, high material costs, etc.

Nevertheless, it appears Cerberus isn't planning to come in and dramatically reduce Chrysler's CAW or UAW workforces. Hargrove sounded particularly pleased that Feinberg seemed to know what he was talking about and expressed his company was in it for the long haul.

[Source: Automotive News, sub. req'd]

We just reported that a group of Chrysler employees in Toledo are crafting a proposal that would have the automaker's 50,000 UAW workers buy a controlling stake in the automaker. The proposed worker buyout offer is already stirring up a reaction among the major players involved in the potential sale of the Chrysler Group. Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers union, told Automotive News this morning that his organization is not interested in the proposal being put together by the Employee Buyout Committee. In his estimation, workers have already hitched their jobs and pensions to Chrysler's wagon, and that's enough. Hargrove admitted, however, he had not read the plan yet.

Though the UAW is getting the cold shoulder from its border brothers, billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian is reportedly interested in meeting with the Employee Buyout Committee to discuss working together to acquire Chrysler. Kerkorian and his investment firm, Tracinda Corp., have already made a low-ball bid of $4.5 billion for the Chrysler Group. Perhaps sensing his reputation is a liability in these matters, Kerkorian may be looking for a partner in the UAW employees that could get him to the negotiating table.

[Source: Automotive News]