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24 February, 2003Company is trying to impose escalated costs for health care coverage.
CANADA: When met by a company refusal to drop its demand for increased employee payments for health benefit coverage, 1,100 Canadian Auto Worker members at Sterling Trucks in St. Thomas, Ontario, started strike action on February 20 at 11:59 p.m. The union says that the company, which is owned by DaimlerChrysler, already has a US$5 cost advantage over its American plants on health care coverage, and "now they want an even greater saving at the expense of their Canadian workforce."
The workers at the Sterling Trucks assembly plant joined the CAW in December, and negotiations for this first contract have been underway since January. Other remaining key issues in the talks include wages and time off the job.
The company manufactures commercial trucks -- day haulers such as dump trucks and cement mixers. It assembles the trucks for DaimlerChrysler's Freightliner LLC subsidiary.