A union representing auto workers said a plan by Stellantis NV to build a new battery plant in Canada is growing more “precarious” as negotiations between the company and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government drag on.
(Bloomberg) — A union representing auto workers said a plan by Stellantis NV to build a new battery plant in Canada is growing more “precarious” as negotiations between the company and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government drag on.
Lana Payne, president of Unifor, said there isn’t much time left for the Canadian and provincial governments to reach a deal with the automaker on public subsidies for the electric vehicle battery plant in Windsor, Ontario.
“We’ve dealt with auto companies for a very long time. We know they don’t make threats, they make decisions — and that’s where we are at right now,” Payne said Monday in an interview.
Stellantis announced in an emailed statement earlier in the day that it had halted construction on the plant. The European automaker and LG Energy Solution Ltd. of South Korea said last year they would invest more than $4 billion in a battery-making facility in Windsor, across the border from Detroit.
All indications are that the federal and Ontario governments are putting their all into the negotiations, Payne said. “Our message to them is: don’t take your foot off the gas. Keep working at it. The longer this goes on the more precarious it becomes. We’re not dealing with a lot of time here.”
Unifor represents about 8,000 Stellantis workers in Canada, in addition to workers at its suppliers, according to the union
The federal government and the province of Ontario will had originally pledged to spend up to about C$1 billion ($742 million) to support the Stellantis-LG project. The 45 gigawatt-hour factory, which is expected to begin operations in 2025, will create 2,500 jobs and supply the automaker’s assembly facility in Windsor and others across North America.
The companies made their announcement months before President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains rich incentives for certain types of manufacturing, including EVs.
After the act was signed into law, Trudeau pledged financial help to make Canadian manufacturing plants competitive with US ones. His government offered a package worth as much as C$13 billion years to Volkswagen AG for a battery plant in St. Thomas, Ontario.
On Friday, Stellantis said Trudeau’s government hadn’t met its promises and the company was beginning to make “contingency plans.” Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s office said negotiations are continuing.
–With assistance from Laura Dhillon Kane.
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