A new contract has been approved by the roughly 200 members of Unifor Local 195 at Kautex in east Windsor.
Members gathered at Local 195's hall on Somme Ave. to vote on a new deal Saturday morning.
Workers voted 65% in favour of a deal that will see a $1,200 signing bonus and a 3.5% wage increase over the next three years.
Local President John Toth says the goal was to get the members caught up after they felt they had made concessions in the previous talks.
He told AM800 News the close vote indicated there is still a sense that workers felt they deserved more, but there has to be some compromise in negotiations.
"We anticipated a much higher margin considering the improvements that were made. You have to realize that there's a lot of pent up frustration," says Toth. "They've been waiting many years to try to get gains and they haven't had annual increases in a number of years. So they've fallen behind the cost of living, they've fallen behind the inflationary rates that have been set.
Overall, Toth says the monetary gains are a good start.
"The wage increases total 3.5% over three years, but there's also a $1,000 lump some payment in each year of the agreement as well as the annual percentage increases. The first year there's a 1.5% increase, which will bring production workers more than $23/hr," he says.
There are improvements to several other areas of the contract as well, according to Toth.
"The contract featured several improvements to the pension plan, to RRSP's, improvements to time off, improvements to seniority rights," Toth says. "All-in-all I counted about four dozen improvements to the contract."
Toth says another key piece in the deal is accommodations for workers injured outside of the workplace.
Kautex makes plastic gas tanks for vehicles.
