STE-THERESE, QC- Some 800 workers at Paccar’s medium-duty truck plant in Ste-Thérèse, Quebec, have stopped building trucks. 

Paccar warned employees on Saturday afternoon that unless they approved the final collective agreement, they would be locked out of the truck assembly plant, citing a “no contract, no work” policy. The workers’ contract ended at midnight on Saturday.

Despite the warning, this past weekend, 76 percent of employees rejected the company’s final contract offer.

Paccar and the Local 728 of the union Unifor have been in negotiations to renew the collective agreement for the past two months.  

A rocky history

The Ste-Thérèse plant was plagued with confrontational union-management relations in the 90s and was finally shut down in ’96.

In 1999, PACCAR announced plans to rebuild and expand the factory, investing $80-million in the plant, which was expected to produce 20,000 trucks a year. Paccar received a $24-million loan from the Canadian and Quebec governments and refurbished the plant, making it its primary medium-duty truck facility.

The company had also achieved record sales and earnings for the second quarter and first half of 1999.

But as early as 2004, Paccar workers in Quebec were back on the picket lines. On Dec. 1, 2004, their contract expired and some 800 workers walkedout and were locked out of the plant. That weekend, 88 percent of union members rejected a deal that would have given them a 12-percent raise over five years.