{"id":245511,"date":"2025-10-28T11:39:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T11:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/245511\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T11:39:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T11:39:17","slug":"laid-off-stellantis-auto-workers-in-brampton-face-a-grim-new-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/245511\/","title":{"rendered":"Laid off Stellantis auto workers in Brampton face a grim new reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Unifor 1285 co-ordinator Danny Ingleston shows the large job search board in the foyer of the action centre in Brampton.Sammy Kogan\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Harvinder Reehal and thousands of his co-workers are contending with a harsh reality: They may never return to their jobs.<\/p>\n

For nearly two years, Mr. Reehal and 3,000 other auto workers have been temporarily laid off at the Stellantis NV STLA-N<\/a> assembly plant in Brampton, Ont. The factory was idled in December, 2023, to retool for the production of electric vehicles. Only 340 workers were needed for the overhaul.<\/p>\n

Then, on Oct. 14, Stellantis dealt its Brampton workers another blow: the vehicle they were supposed to assemble \u2013 the Jeep Compass electric SUV \u2013 will instead be built in Illinois. The automaker has offered few details about the plant\u2019s future, according to the union that represents the Brampton workers. But Canada\u2019s trade landscape has changed so dramatically in recent months that many now believe their days of working at an auto plant are over for good. <\/p>\n

Auto workers have experienced whiplash. They were told that an EV transition would revitalize their sector, but automakers have pulled back on those plans. Then the trade war began early this year, with U.S. President Donald Trump taking aim at Canada\u2019s industry, convinced that tariffs on Canadian-made vehicles would revive U.S. assembly lines.<\/p>\n

To some degree, Mr. Trump is getting what he wants.<\/p>\n

Ottawa\u2019s move to curb tariff relief for GM, Stellantis will harm country\u2019s auto sector, manufacturers say<\/a><\/p>\n

Opinion: Canadian leaders are naive to be shocked over Stellantis pulling Jeeps from Brampton<\/a><\/p>\n

Stellantis\u2019s shift to Illinois is part of a US$13-billion plan to increase production in the United States and mitigate the impact of tariffs that have already cost the company billions. Stellantis has said it plans to boost U.S. production by 50 per cent over the next four years, adding more than 5,000 jobs in the heartland of America\u2019s manufacturing industry: Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana.<\/p>\n

Then last week, General Motors Co. ended production of the Chevrolet BrightDrop electric parcel van in Ingersoll, Ont., at the expense of 1,150 jobs. The company is planning to cut a shift at its Oshawa plant in January.<\/p>\n

Many workers are planning for a post-auto future. <\/p>\n

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Harvinder Reehal is just one of thousands contending with the harsh reality that they may never return to jobs in the auto industry.Sammy Kogan\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Mr. Reehal is taking two courses \u2013 CPR and security guard training \u2013 at the headquarters for Unifor local 1285, which represents roughly 8,000 auto and other manufacturing workers in the Brampton area.<\/p>\n

If and when he gets into a new line of work, Mr. Reehal will almost certainly earn less than he did at Stellantis, where he worked on the assembly line for 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not what I wanted, but there is very little hope now that the factory will start producing again,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is part of life. You just got to move on.\u201d <\/p>\n

For many Canadian auto workers, Mr. Trump\u2019s tariffs are expediting a decades-long bleed-out of the domestic industry. Workers have become accustomed to living amid the spectre of layoffs and unpredictability, never fully sure if their shifts will be cut, if a specific vehicle model will be discontinued, or if a factory will be shut down for an undetermined length of time for retooling.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had to sum it up, we feel betrayed,\u201d said Danny Ingleston, a long-time Stellantis employee who is also one of two union representatives at the Brampton factory. \u201cThe company let us down, politicians have let us down. With no real reason, they pulled the rug out from under us.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a brief period this year, in January and part of February, where Mr. Ingleston got his old life back. He resumed his job after Stellantis called select employees back to work to prepare the factory for resuming production. But on Feb. 20, the company announced an eight-week delay in reopening its Brampton plant. That was the last time, until Oct. 14, that the union and employees heard directly from Stellantis about plans for the factory. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe e-mailed them weekly since Feb. 20, asking for an update, and their only response was \u2018sit tight,\u2019\u201d Mr. Ingleston said.<\/p>\n

Long-time auto workers have seen some of this before. \u201cI\u2019ve been through three layoffs since 2008. \u2026 You can\u2019t predict anything in auto,\u201d said Sam Hui, 60, a Stellantis worker. Mr. Hui has been out of work since 2023, but he is close to retirement age. He\u2019s more worried for his younger colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could retire in five years, and I\u2019ll be fine because I have paid into my pension plan,\u201d he said. \u201cI worry about the younger workers at the plant who don\u2019t have years of pension contribution and will eventually have to rely only on unemployment insurance. To them, I say, don\u2019t wait to find another job. Start now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the agreement between Stellantis and Unifor was that laid-off workers at the Brampton factory would get paid supplemental income \u2013 between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of their regular hourly wage \u2013 for up to two years. <\/p>\n

Come January, workers will stop receiving a paycheque, or they might be given permanent layoff notices before the end of the year, according to the union. The problem, Mr. Ingleston said, is that the union simply does not know yet.<\/p>\n

In early 2024, Unifor set up a training centre in Brampton to help laid-off workers navigate the two-year period of unpredictability. The Brampton Action Centre is an initiative funded by the provincial government, and it runs a variety of training courses, on topics that include using forklifts and Microsoft Excel, CPR and r\u00e9sum\u00e9-building.<\/p>\n

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Jody Schneider works as a co-ordinator at the Brampton Action Centre, which has helped nearly 4,000 workers since it opened in early 2024.Sammy Kogan\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

On any given day, according to Jody Schneider, one of the co-ordinators at the centre, more than 100 workers receive training. The facility has helped approximately 3,900 workers since it officially opened in February, 2024.<\/p>\n

Since the Oct. 14 announcement, the number of visitors to the Action Centre has increased dramatically, Ms. Schneider noted. \u201cWhat is difficult for us is we feel we do not have any answers to give people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Some of the Brampton workers have another option: moving to Windsor. Soon after Oct. 14, Stellantis posted 1,500 jobs at its Windsor factory on an internal portal, and is encouraging its employees to apply for those jobs. The company told The Globe and Mail last week that it would be adding a third shift at its Windsor Assembly Plant to support increased demand for the Chrysler Pacifica minivan and the new Dodge Charger Scat Pack.<\/p>\n

But relocating four hours away is not easy for many. Maria Elizabeth Panetta, who has worked for Stellantis since 2016, said while it was good to know there were still job openings in the auto industry, it would be impossible for her to uproot herself. Ms. Panetta, 43, is a single mother and has a joint custody agreement with her ex-partner to parent her nine-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n

While living off a supplemental income has been sufficient for Ms. Panetta to make ends meet over the last two years, she was looking forward to getting her regular income plus overtime wages when the Brampton factory reopened.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing is, we make good money,\u201d Ms. Panetta said, noting that the current supplemental income she receives is actually half of what she regularly made with overtime hours. <\/p>\n

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Maria Elizabeth Panetta worked for Stellantis since 2016.Sammy Kogan\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Auto and auto parts workers have historically been paid more and had better benefits than other manufacturing workers, especially because they are unionized. Unifor\u2019s 2023 contracts with the Big Three automakers \u2013 Stellantis, GM and Ford \u2013 included substantial hourly wage increases for most categories of auto workers. <\/p>\n

Production assemblers with one year of seniority, for example, get paid almost $45 an hour. By contrast, a forklift operator in a warehouse \u2013 a job that many former assembly line workers move into and that is much in demand \u2013 gets an average hourly wage of between $22 and $28, according to data from Unifor. Statistics Canada pegs the median income for that job at $21 an hour.<\/p>\n

A recent study from the agency found that workers in industries dependent on U.S. demand for Canadian exports, such as autos, have fared worse economically in the years following layoffs, particularly because they tend to be re-employed in jobs that pay less. For men, that earnings decrease was 42 per cent, and for women it was 50 per cent.<\/p>\n

Ottawa has made attempts to cushion the impact of tariffs on workers by allocating tens of millions of dollars to reskilling programs through Labour Market Development Agreements (LMDAs) with provinces and territories. LMDAs essentially fund employers to retrain workers and offer financial assistance while they are retraining. The federal government has also loosened certain Employment Insurance requirements, by giving long-tenured workers 20 extra weeks of income support, and waiving the one-week waiting period to receive EI.<\/p>\n

But for many auto workers, none of these measures offer any immediate relief. <\/p>\n

The fact of the matter is, auto jobs are good, middle-class jobs with benefits and it is hard to find similar employment opportunities, Mr. Ingleston said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we own homes. We can afford to pay our mortgages. If this ends, what will we do? Start from scratch?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Unifor 1285 co-ordinator Danny Ingleston shows the large job search board in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-245511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}