BREAKING NEWS: Sterling workers on strike at St. Thomas plant

ST. THOMAS, Ont. — More than 2,000 CAW Local 1001 members at the Sterling Truck assembly plant in St. Thomas, Ontario walked off the job at midnight on a legal strike.

The workers went of strike this morning after talks broke down with management late last night. The union wants higher wages, more time off, pension and benefits.

Other outstanding issues include job security language in the contract that would make St. Thomas the only plant for the truck models built there. The union fears plant employees could be laid off when the market slumps next year after new, more expensive, EPA-mandated engines take effect.

CAW members at Sterling’s St. Thomas plant hit the bricks

“We weren’t able to reach an agreement. There was a lot of hard work done by the bargaining committee to bring a reasonable, responsible proposal to the
table but the company refused to match the needs of our members,” said Richard Laverty, the chairperson of the CAW bargaining committee. “Our members have worked inordinate amounts of overtime to meet unprecedented levels of production. The company has refused to recognize their hard work.”

The union denounced the Redford, Mich.-based truckmaker for “refusing to recognize workers’ demands for a decent settlement at a time when sales are at their highest level in history.”

The workers went on strike for over two weeks in early 2003 over their first contract. The St. Thomas plant was a non-union shop until October 2002.

The St. Thomas plant originally constructed in 1991 to build Freightliner-brand trucks, before Freightliner bought the Sterling brand in 1997 from Ford. It operates three shifts at full capacity, producing Sterling’s conventional vehicles, the Sterling HX heavy-duty truck and the Acterra medium-duty, for distribution in North America and export markets.

In 2003, the plant produced 78 units per day. Today it produces 114 units per day.

Meanwhile, the strike got off to a heated start today when the tires of three police cars were slashed.

According to the London Free Press, St. Thomas police had been helping a convoy of managers leave the building through picket lines at the time of the incident.

Police have not determined if strikers had were involved, but the union condemned such tactics.

— with files from the London Free Press