Workers approve strike at Sterling Truck plant

ST. THOMAS, Ont. (Feb. 10, 2003) — Workers at Freightliner LLC’s Sterling Truck plant in St. Thomas, Ont., have voted to strike unless the company meets demands for better wages, benefits, pensions, and time off.

The Canadian Auto Workers said 88 per cent of the workers who voted approved a strike after negotiations on a first collective agreement broke down on Feb. 2.

“The corporation has to recognize that the workers here are all done rolling back wages and rolling back benefits, and they have to get that through their heads,” said CAW assistant to the president Bob Chernecki. “We now have a union here and people have had enough of rollbacks.”

The St. Thomas plant, which produces heavy- and medium-duty trucks for Freightliner under the Sterling brand, was a non-union shop until October 2002. Negotiations on a collective agreement began in early January.

No strike date was set.

Last June, CAW members at the International Truck and Engine assembly plant in Chatham, Ont., walked off the job for six weeks. The strike resulted in a two-year collective agreement, but in October, the company said the plant would close because it was too costly to operate. Production is expected to shift to a facility Mexico starting in June of this year.


Have your say


This is a moderated forum. Comments will no longer be published unless they are accompanied by a first and last name and a verifiable email address. (Today's Trucking will not publish or share the email address.) Profane language and content deemed to be libelous, racist, or threatening in nature will not be published under any circumstances.

*