FCA extends 3rd shift at Canada plant until end of year

FCA Canada has again extended the life of the third shift at its minivan plant in Windsor, Ontario, according to a Facebook post by the union representing employees there.

In a notice to its members posted to the site, Unifor Local 444 says its executives met with senior FCA officials Wednesday afternoon and were told the shift will run “until at least the end of 2019.”

The union did not say why the automaker extended the life of the third shift. FCA had originally said the shift would be eliminated Sept. 30 but then extended the shift until Oct. 21 to “accommodate a large order.”

“This is not a final solution,” Unifor’s online statement reads, “but every one of these extensions provides us more opportunities to work with the company to get a final resolve that maintains our third shift and current workforce for the future.”

FCA Canada said it was preparing a public statement.

"We've just got to keep plucking away as we keep meeting with the company and the federal government," Unifor President Jerry Dias told Automotive News Canada on Wednesday.

FCA in March said it would end the third shift at the Windsor plant amid sluggish North American sales for the Chrysler Pacifica and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans it builds. The third shift’s end would put about 1,500 of 6,000 workers at the plant out of a job. 

The automaker has sold more than 14.6 million minivans globally since 1983, though the segment it created continues to shrink.

Last year, U.S. minivan sales sank to 490,576, the lowest level since 2011’s 473,090 total, and only about one-third of the 1.37 million sold in 2000, the peak year, according to the Automotive News Data Center. Sales are down another 15 percent in the first half of this year, with no end to the decline in sight. That is a far cry from 1993 to 2005, when automakers sold more than one million of the vans every year.

Minivan market share has slipped from 7.9 percent of U.S. new-vehicle sales in 2000 to 2.6 per cent this year, according to the Automotive News Data Center

Unifor brass has been pursuing a work-sharing program since at least April, when top officials from both parties met to discuss the future of the plant. At that meeting, FCA said it is committed to spending about $350 million (US$263 million) on the plant for “future product,” according to the union.

Meanwhile, production of the Dodge Grand Caravan will end in May as Fiat Chrysler steers minivan buyers into its new, entry-level Chrysler Voyager, according to a forecasting company.

AutoForecast Solutions, in a weekly report in July, said Grand Caravan production at FCA’s Windsor, Ontario, assembly plant is expected to end on May 22. Sam Fiorani, vice-president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, said FCA moved up the end of production to May from December, as it aims to transition Caravan buyers over to the Voyager.

John Irwin contributed to this report