{"id":903134,"date":"2026-09-20T17:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T17:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/903134\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T17:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T17:48:10","slug":"unifor-says-stellantis-brampton-plant-could-be-lost-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/903134\/","title":{"rendered":"Unifor says Stellantis\u2019 Brampton plant could be lost forever"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unifor National President Lana Payne urges that Stellantis is \u2018100 per cent serious\u2019 about leaving the Brampton, Ontario plant and seeks answers from Ottawa. <\/p>\n

Unifor national president Lana Payne is warning that Stellantis is \u201c100 per cent serious\u201d about exiting its Brampton assembly plant and she is asking Ottawa to step in and prevent its sale to Canadian armoured \u2060vehicle maker Roshel.<\/p>\n

With Stellantis and Unifor still at an impasse just days before their collective agreement expires on Sept. 20, Payne said at a press conference on Thursday that thousands of auto jobs could be permanently erased.<\/p>\n

\u201cStellantis is looking for an exit, and no one, no one, should be holding the door open,\u201d Payne told reporters Thursday. \u201cThis would make Brampton the first auto plant to fall in this trade war. And when plants close, they rarely, if ever, come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comments come just one day after Payne penned a letter to federal Industry Minister M\u00e9lanie Joly on Wednesday warning that \u201cthere is no comparable economic replacement for this work,\u201d and that \u201cCanada\u2019s economy will be worse-off as a result.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"Unifor National President Lana Payne Auto Talks 2026 Unifor National President Lana Payne speaks to media after the opening of bargaining between Unifor and Ford Motor Co., in Toronto, on Monday, June 22, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Sammy Kogan <\/p>\n

Roshel had previously said that they \u201clook forward\u201d to bringing back over 2,000 jobs, but Payne rejected that idea saying \u201cit\u2019s contingent on government contracts.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking thousands and thousands of jobs that cannot be replicated there…consider the pay, the benefits, the collective agreement, the pensions (and) all of the things that we have been negotiated over many decades at that plant. These are not things that you can recreate overnight,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A letter to employees<\/p>\n

In a letter to employees Thursday, Stellantis explained that market and trade conditions had \u201cdirectly impacted the original business case for Brampton.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past several months, Stellantis has evaluated a range of options to return production to Brampton, including potential new product allocations, interim production concepts, and opportunities with other companies,\u201d the letter read. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile each option was carefully reviewed, none provided a sustainable long-term business case that would support continued operations at the facility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Cars pass along the assembly line at the Stellantis plant in Brampton, Ont. on Friday July 21, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Chris Young <\/p>\n

The company then clarified that they are \u201cexploring a potential sale of the facility to Roshel,\u201d but stressed that no transaction has been completed and due diligence is ongoing.<\/p>\n

Stellantis also pointed to more than $8 billion in previous investments saying that they remain \u201ccommitted to Canada.\u201d <\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s memorandum<\/p>\n

Last week, Stellantis signed a memorandum of understanding with Roshel which has been idle since 2023.<\/p>\n

The facility had been slated for retooling to build the Jeep Compass, with that process beginning in early 2024. However, Stellantis paused the plan in early 2025 before announcing it would move Compass production to the U.S.<\/p>\n

Payne noted that Unifor continues to believe Stellantis should resume the promised retooling to get them \u201cback on track.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Cars pass along the assembly line Cars pass along the assembly line at the Stellantis plant in Brampton, Ont. on Friday July 21, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Chris Young <\/p>\n

\u201cOur union has not wavered on its position that the best course of action for Brampton is for Stellantis to commence retooling of the promised Jeep Compass,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Stellantis did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CTV News. However, president and CEO Trevor Longley has previously said that the company considered multiple options for the facility and believes Roshel represents \u201ca strong path to restoring sustainable operations\u201d while preserving the site\u2019s manufacturing capabilities.<\/p>\n

Contract talks at an impasse<\/p>\n

The dispute comes ahead of the expiration of the collective agreement between Unifor and Stellantis at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday. <\/p>\n

Payne stressed to reporters that the date is not a strike deadline and that no strike deadline has been set.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt remains Unifor\u2019s objective to reach a tentative settlement with Stellantis without the need to take strike action,\u201d she said, adding that bargaining remains \u201cextremely challenging.\u201d <\/p>\n

Strike action remains a possibility after the required steps, including conciliation and a strike vote.<\/p>\n

\"\"Unifor National President Lana Payne speaks during a rally calling for the protection of Canadian jobs, at the union’s Constitution Convention in Vancouver, on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Darryl Dyck Unifor National President Lana Payne speaks during a rally calling for the protection of Canadian jobs, at the union’s Constitution Convention in Vancouver, on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Darryl Dyck <\/p>\n

Payne said the union is pushing governments to find another option for the Brampton plant rather than accepting a choice between Roshel and closure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Unifor is ultimately seeking here is time,\u201d she said. \u201cDon\u2019t close, don\u2019t sell. Protect the integrity of the plant as a bridge to future vehicle production.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything can happen in six months, anything can happen in a year, anything can happen in two years. The world can change very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Payne later added that selling the plant during ongoing trade tensions and collective bargaining would be \u201cindefensible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The union is now pressing the federal government to clarify its role in the proposed sale and to intervene to keep Stellantis in Brampton.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe choice should not be that it\u2019s being sold,\u201d Payne said. \u201cThe choice should be that we have time to figure out a solution here that includes vehicle assembly for Brampton,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

With files from the Canadian Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unifor National President Lana Payne urges that Stellantis is \u2018100 per cent serious\u2019 about leaving the Brampton, Ontario…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194339],"tags":[712,51759,49,48],"class_list":["post-903134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brampton","tag-apple-news","tag-brampton","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903134","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=903134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}