Fiat Ready to Walk on Deal With Chrysler After Canadian Union Refuses to Budge
Fiat is about ready to walk away from a potential partnership with Chrysler says CEO Sergio Marchionne unless the U.S. automaker can significantly cut labor costs. While the United Auto Workers union has made it known that it is willing to work with Fiat and Chrysler management, the Canadian Auto Workers union isn’t.
“From what I can tell from a distance, the CAW may have taken more rigid positions,” said Marchionne in an interview with Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper.
Currently Chrysler and the CAW do not see eye-to-eye. The automaker has asked the union to cut labor costs by $19 CDN to $55 to match hourly wages in U.S. plants but the CAW will only go as far as reducing hourly wages by $7.25 (an amount GM workers agreed to recently).
Marchionne did not mince words in his interview with the Globe saying that a sense of entitlement in an organization that is technically bankrupt was nonsense and that the involvement of the U.S. and Canadian governments in a bailout plan was a sign of last resort for Chrysler.
Marchionne said that there is currently only a 50 percent chance the deal could go through. Meanwhile Moody’s Corporate Finance recently said that Chrysler has a greater than 70 percent chance of going into bankruptcy.
Meanwhile the Obama administration’s April 30th deadline is fast approaching.
[Source: Globe and Mail]
With AutoGuide from its launch, Colum previously acted as Editor-in-Chief of Modified Luxury & Exotics magazine where he became a certifiable car snob driving supercars like the Koenigsegg CCX and racing down the autobahn in anything over 500 hp. He has won numerous automotive journalism awards including the Best Video Journalism Award in 2014 and 2015 from the Automotive Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Colum founded Geared Content Studios, VerticalScope's in-house branded content division and works to find ways to integrate brands organically into content.
More by Colum Wood
Comments
Join the conversation
Do the CAW members understand that if they do NOT agree, they become unemployed?