For four years the relationship between General Motors and the Canadian union Unifor was in tatters — marked by a strike, blockades, an international media campaign and the end of vehicle production at Oshawa Assembly.
Things have changed.
Since November, across back-to-back rounds of bargaining, GM and Unifor have agreed to new contracts that include up to CA$2.3 billion ($1.8 billion) in new investments in the automaker's Canadian assembly plants. By this time next year, Oshawa is expected to be building trucks again, and GM's CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, will build electric cargo vans for the company's new BrightDrop fleet business, unveiled this month during CES.
"We're at a point in our collective history where there are opportunities, and I'm not going to allow the past to get in the way of them," Unifor President Jerry Dias said.
GM and the union quietly began negotiating a new contract for CAMI early this month , long befor…