Unifor Members Ratify GM Deal: 96.5% Support at CAMI, $1.4 Billion Pledged as Talks Turn to Stellantis

Unifor members at General Motors have ratified their new three-year collective agreement, with votes announced Aug. 30 delivering 80.5 percent support across GM's Oshawa Assembly, St. Catharines Propulsion and Woodstock Parts Distribution Centre — and 96.5 percent at the mothballed CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, according to WardsAuto. The ratification locks in more than CA$1.4 billion in pledged Canadian investment at the very moment Canada-U.S. trade relations remain, in the union's words, frayed and unsettled.

What the vote locked in

The agreement covers roughly 4,600 workers at four Ontario facilities. Pay and conditions largely mirror the pattern Unifor set with Ford in July: 3 percent annual wage increases, with laid-off CAMI workers receiving income-maintenance-plan support until May 1, 2028. The investment package returns next-generation GMC Sierra Heavy Duty production to Oshawa Assembly and makes St. Catharines the single source for a next-generation transmission.

• 96.5% — support at CAMI Assembly in Ingersoll, currently idled
• 80.5% — support at Oshawa, St. Catharines and Woodstock
• CA$1.4 billion+ — GM's total pledged Canadian investment
• 3% per year — wage increases under the pattern agreement
• May 1, 2028 — income protection runs out for laid-off CAMI workers

CAMI: the EV stake in this deal

CAMI is where this contract touches Canada's electric-vehicle industry most directly. The Ingersoll plant was retooled as GM's first full-scale EV assembly facility in Canada and built the BrightDrop Zevo electric delivery van before being idled. Under the ratified deal, GM has promised in writing not to close or sell the plant during the three-year term, and the federal government has promised to consider CAMI first should it proceed with plans to build armoured military vehicles. Greig Mordue, a former Toyota Canada general manager who now teaches at McMaster University, told WardsAuto the arrangement "probably provides an out for Unifor and GM" at CAMI should the armoured-vehicle work not materialize.

Tariff shadow over the vote

The tentative deal was reached Aug. 22 — one day after Ottawa pulled negotiators from trade talks with Washington, partly over new U.S. demands that Canada-built pickups sold in the U.S. carry tariffs. Unifor president Lana Payne, who sits on Prime Minister Mark Carney's Advisory Committee on Canada-U.S. Economic Relations, said GM is investing in its Canadian workforce "at a crucial time, as our domestic auto industry is under siege by the Trump Administration." The Silverado pickups built at Oshawa were one of the products caught in the last-minute tariff changes.

Next: Stellantis and Brampton

Attention now moves to Unifor's talks with Stellantis, which began Sept. 1. The company has declared it is considering selling and closing its Brampton Assembly Plant — a closure that would remove another Ontario manufacturing site just as BYD has reportedly expressed interest in making buses at the idled facility. The GM ratification gives the union a settled pattern to bargain from; whether Stellantis matches it may decide whether Brampton has a future at all.

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