By Scott Anderson
TORONTO, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Workers at General Motors' Canadian assembly plants overwhelming accepted a new three-year contract on Sunday, paving the way for similar deals to be crafted when talks get under way with the other two U.S. auto giants.
Seventy-two percent of the 19,000 workers at the General Motors plants that voted approved the pact that gives the hourly workers more money and more time off, the Canadian Auto Workers said.
"We had some pretty contentious issues that we had to deal with at GM," Peter Kennedy, assistant to the secretary treasurer at the CAW, told Reuters. "The mood of the membership at every location was as I had anticipated. But everybody was happy."
The highlights of the three-year deal include a 3 percent wage increase in the first two years of the contract and a 2 percent hike in the third year; a C$1,000 ($633.00) signing bonus; 36 hours in additional paid time off and improved healthcare benefits.
The company also gave the union a firm guarantee of an C$800-million investment in the company's plants over the life of the agreement, including a new paint shop in Oshawa. The union also secured a guarantee of additional jobs at its St. Catharines, Ontario operations, which had been considered a main sticking point in the negotiations.
The contracts with 44,000 workers at the three largest Canadian car companies -- GM, Ford of Canada and DaimlerChrysler Canada -- were to expire at midnight on Sept.17. But GM and the union headed off a strike when they reached an agreement five hours before the deadline.
The union will name its second target company for negotiations on Monday with an Oct. 1 deadline for talks.
However, talks are not expected to go as smoothly as they did for the two sides in the GM talks. The key issue in the negotiations remains the union's opposition to Ford's planned closing of its Ontario Truck Plant in Oakville, Ontario. The union has vowed to fight aggressively to keep the plant open.
The union is also fighting the potential closure of Chrysler's Pillette Road plant in Windsor, Ontario.
But the union is confident deals can be reached with the other auto makers without strikes.
"This contract sets the pattern and allows us to go in and focus on the specific issues in each of the other manufacturers," Kennedy said.
The contract talks are under the microscope because they are being held a year earlier than negotiations between the United Auto Workers and the carmakers in the United States.
Auto and parts production in Canada and the United States are closely linked and a Canadian strike would have a major impact across North America.
Only in 1993 and 1999 were automaker contract negotiations settled without strikes.
($1=$1.58 Canadian)