A strike continues for employees at Motor City Chrysler in Windsor.
More than 60 workers voted 93% in favour of a strike before walking out Jan. 31.
Unifor Local 195 President John Toth says management has yet to return to the negotiation table.
He tells AM800 News the company is asking for too many concessions.
"The unions position all along is the economy is doing well, the dealership is doing well, it's one of the top five dealerships for Chrysler in all of Canada," says Toth. "Yet the employer is still insistent that the employees give back, that the employees take concessions and the employees pay moving forward."
Toth says employees already gave the company more than they were willing too in the name of prosperity.
"Three-years-ago the dealership was in a transition in terms of new ownership coming in, even though the economy was doing better then, we said we'd take a step back at that point-in-time, we'll wait until these new owners get their legs under them and the dealerships on solid footing," he says. "But obviously, we wanted to make some gains in the future, we're in this for the long-term."
Paid vacation days and a "wage-floor" for technicians are some major stumbling blocks in negotiations, he added.
"We're trying to get that back up to 40-hours, but at the same time the employers are trying to remove that floor all together to the point where there saying the furthest they'll go is 30-hours," Toth says. "A guy's got to be here 40-hours, over his tool box 40-hours, working with cars for 40-hours, but at the end of the day he's only going to get 30-hours pay. That's just not fair."
The previous contract expired on Jan. 30 at 11:59pm.
— with files from AM800's Peter Langille