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Unifor Local 195 has condemned Titan Tool and Die over what it calls an “egregious step” taken by the company in terminating health-care benefits and ending what the union calls a supplemental monthly pension benefit program for current retirees.
CBC has reached out to the company to confirm the union’s assertions, with no response.
According to the union, the cuts made by the company affect former employees and surviving spouses who relied on benefits earned through decades of service to the company.
“We bargained over the years [that] the retirees get their benefits paid as long as they’re retired,” Randy St. Pierre, the Titan Tool and Die chair for Unifor Local 195, told CBC Windsor.
“We have about 12 to 16 guys right now and they cut all their benefits off. It was supposed to start April 12th [but] they let it go a little longer and now they’re done for sure.”
St. Pierre said those affected have been left to make the difficult choices at a time when workers are facing an increased cost of living.
“You start to crunch, you don’t get the food that you used to get or you don’t pay bills to keep your medicine. There’s a lot of decisions these retirees have to make now,” he said.
Titan Tool and Die Limited is a privately-owned manufacturing supplier based in Windsor, Ont. Founded in 1956, the company specializes in making custom metal stampings, welded assemblies, and the tooling used to shape vehicles primarily for the automotive industry.
‘A disgraceful new low’
This comes as a dispute with Unifor Local 195 members nears 11 months. Members of the union have been locked out since Aug. 11, 2025.
In a news release on Wednesday, Unifor national president Lana Payne also condemned the company over its latest action.
“Going after the most vulnerable people in this dispute, retirees and their surviving spouses, is a disgraceful new low for Titan Tool & Die’s owners,” Payne said.
“Retirees spent decades building Titan into a successful Canadian company Windsor was proud of. Instead of paying monies lawfully owed to workers, Titan is cutting off health care and reducing pension benefits of the most vulnerable.
No company in this country should be allowed to treat people this way,” added Payne.
Meanwhile, Unifor says Titan Tool and Die has filed for another injunction against the union, “as it continues to use a lopsided legal system to try to dismantle Unifor members picketing and solidarity actions.”
Unifor Local 195 says that in all of this, Titan has yet to pay any severance and termination monies owed to locked-out workers.
“These are people who gave 30 to 40 years or more to Titan Tool & Die, and now the company is taking away the health care and reducing the pension benefits they absolutely depend on every day,” said Unifor Local 195 president Emile Nabbout.
“Our locked-out members and our retirees will never be intimidated. We will be on that picket line until Titan Tool & Die pays every dollar it owes.”
Unifor Local 195 president Emile Nabbout speaks with CBC Windsor via Zoom. (CBC News)
On Wednesday Nabbout told CBC Windsor that what the company is doing “doesn’t sit well” with the union.
“The company is really hurting the surviving beneficiary for a pension family who work all their life and left some pension for their partners. So the company is really disgraceful in the way they handle those issues and is not sitting well with us,” he said.
“I don’t think any employer in this country should be treating the [workers] the way this company is treating the [workers],” added Nabbout.