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Joseph Jacildo helped assemble vehicles inside a Brampton, Ont., plant for 28 years.
Working on that assembly line became a family business, with his wife, three daughters and each of their partners eventually coming on board.
Now, all eight autoworkers and Jacildo’s 10 grandchildren have moved 350 kilometres southwest to Windsor to keep their jobs assembling vehicles for Stellantis.
“We are the first batch of transfers from Brampton,” he said. “It’s hard to start from the beginning … It’s a new city, new environment, new plant.”
The auto giant’s Brampton plant hasn’t produced a car for more than two years, leaving the Jacildos and 3,000 other laid-off workers in limbo.
It was originally called a “temporary pause” to retool for the eventual production of new gas and electric vehicles, but that was later put on hold. The company hasn’t announced any future plans for the facility and is in a dispute with the federal government over hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars it received in recent years.
As a result, the Jacildos reluctantly agreed to an offer to transfer to Stellantis’s Windsor Assembly Plant.
Joseph Jacildo, second from left, is seen in 1998 with other family members at the Brampton Assembly Plant. His daughter Jasmine Jacildo, is on the far right as a child (being held by a family member whose face is blurred because they didn’t want their image used). Joseph, Jasmine and other loved ones have relocated to Windsor to keep working in the auto industry as the Brampton facility is shut.
(Submitted by Jasmine Jacildo)
Joseph spoke to CBC while sitting next to his daughter, Jasmine Jacildo, inside her two-bedroom Windsor rental apartment.
Jasmine, her husband, and their young twin daughters and two cats were still unpacking.
“We bought a house in Brampton in December of 2024 right beside the Brampton plant,” she said. “It was kind of heartbreaking. We thought that was going to be our forever home.
“And now, we ended up having to rent that out and then rent this place … just to kind of chase a job,” she said. “It was a very, very difficult decision.”
Jasmine Jacildo’s twins, Lilah and Juliette, have moved with their parents to Windsor after the couple took new jobs at the Stellantis plant in the southwestern Ontario city.
(Submitted by Jasmine Jacildo)
She rationalizes moving to Windsor was the safest thing to do.
Brampton is “where we all started. But if that were to go away, you have no clue what is going to happen with the auto industry in Canada. And then we would have no job,” Jasmine said.
WATCH | Family of autoworkers in 1st batch of transplanted Stellantis workers:
Brampton family with 8 autoworkers makes tough choice to come to Windsor
CBC’s Acton Clarkin speaks with members of a family who used to work at the Brampton Assembly Plant and are now going to be joining the new third shift at Windsor Assembly. They say it was a difficult decision, but they’ll be together in Windsor — all 18 of them, including eight Stellantis employees. Family looks at silver lining
The Jacildos were hired as part of Stellantis’s plans to add a third shift at its Windsor facility. As of last month, Stellantis said more than 1,000 new workers were taken on, plus around 240 transfers from Brampton.
Both Joseph and Jasmine agree Unifor, the union that represents the workers, has helped Brampton plant workers through industry changes, including solidifying a contract for laid-off workers to receive 70 per cent of their salary plus benefits for months after production there halted.
“They really did a good job protecting us. It’s not their decision. It’s Stellantis,” said Joseph.
But Jasmine said she feels as if Unifor could have done more to keep jobs in Brampton.
“There’s nothing we can really do. We’re just line workers. We hope that the union would fight back on it a little bit more. But I think they were also trusting the company in a way where they would make a good decision.”
Jasmine and Joseph Jacildo show off matching Built in Brampton T-shirts featuring a Dodge Charger model that they used to assemble at the Brampton plant.
(Ken Amlin/CBC News)
While adjusting to their new lives in Windsor, the family is trying to keep things in perspective.
“We were just fortunate that our family, we all work together. So we were able to move and transition together. It’s still hard for us, but it definitely is not as hard as some people whose wives or husbands work in jobs in the GTA [Greater Toronto Area], so they have to leave them there,” said Jasmine.
As Joseph considers retiring in a couple of years, he points out a silver lining: the family’s new Windsor colleagues are welcoming all eight Jacildo transplants with open arms.
“And that’s the only thing that’s making me work more, because these people are very good.”