Canadian Labour Reporter

BC Transit, Unifor sign 5-year deal VANCOUVER — Transit workers in British Columbia have ratified a new five-year collective agreement with the province. Unifor Local 333's president Ben Williams said members voted 89 per cent in favour of the new contract with BC Tran- sit, which runs until March 31, 2019. As part of the agreement, employees will get a skilled trades market adjustment, which translates into a $2 bump in order to put tradespersons on par with their private sector counterparts. The deal also includes a tran- sition from the "eight-hour day" effective April 2016, meaning an employee's pension ben- efits would be based on annual income, as opposed to daily wages. That amounts to a 6.6-per- cent increase in pensionable income. "This collective agreement does the most to fix as many problems as possible while rais- ing the bar for as many mem- bers as possible," Unifor said in a letter to members urging them to vote yes for the contract. The union also said it made tremendous gains — including eliminating two-tiered wages, part-time workers and "on-call" status. The employer also agreed to introduce a women's advocate who will receive paid training and be able to direct female em- ployees with workplace con- cerns. Fiat Chrysler, U.S. union contract narrows pay gap DETROIT (Reuters) — The lowest-paid U.S. factory work- ers at Fiat Chrysler Automo- biles NV would get the biggest raises and the most generous profit-sharing checks under a new four-year labour contract, according to details of the pro- posed agreement. United Auto Workers (UAW) union leaders were to meet Friday to start the drive to win ratification of the contract from 40,000 UAW workers at Fiat Chrysler. The current contract allows for a gap of more than $12 per hour (all dollars US) between the lowest- and highest-paid assembly line workers. That gap will drop to less than $8 per hour by the end of the new four- year agreement. Fiat Chrysler chief executive Sergio Marchionne has said he believes in "wealth distribu- tion" and the pact would offer the lower-paid, "second-tier" workers the chance to make more in profit-sharing bonuses than more senior "first-tier" workers. About 45 per cent of Fiat Chrysler's 36,600 hourly workers are second-tier. The company has another 3,400 salaried UAW-represent- ed employees who are affected by some aspects of the pro- posed pact, a company spokes- woman said. Veteran workers will get three per cent raises immedi- ately and in September 2017, and $2,500 lump sum payments in 2016 and 2018. By not giving per-hour base pay hikes in two of the four years in the contract, Fiat Chrysler saves because the rates are not compounded. Second-tier workers could also get bigger profit-sharing bo- nuses than veteran UAW mem- bers if the company achieves at least an eight per cent North American annual profit mar- gin. In its most recent quarter, Fiat Chrysler's North American profit was 7.7 percent, which pales next to Ford Motor Co's 11.1 per cent margin and the 10.5 per cent earned recently by General Motors Co. LABOUR BRIEFS 2 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2015 FORMERLY CLV REPORTS Serving labour relations professionals since 1956 www.labour-reporter.com Published weekly by omson Reuters Canada Ltd. 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Labour Reporter Canadian www.labourreporter.com Photo: Rebecca Cook (Reuters) LABOUR LENS UAW president Dennis Williams and Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne signed a new contract in Detroit, Mich., that narrows the wage gap between new hires and veteran auto workers.

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