NextStar Energy is downplaying the issue of foreign workers at the battery plant, after a letter was sent to the Prime Minister recently from a union representing some local workers.
Canada’s Building Trades Unions is demanding the federal government intervene as officials allege that local workers are being sidelined by foreign workers.
In the letter to Justin Trudeau CBTU members say they've had several "fruitless" meetings with both Stellantis and LG to secure work they say their members can perform.
CBTU is made up of 12 skilled trades unions, including painters, carpenters, plumbers, Teamsters, elevator and rail operators to name a few.
In a statement to CTV News, CBTU Executive Director Sean Strickland says they have 1,600 workers at the factory on Windsor’s east end but they also have 180 Essex-Kent millwrights and ironworkers who are currently unemployed and available to do the work.
NextStar Energy says the CBTU complaint is "inaccurate", and that out of the nearly 2,000 workers on site readying for the launch of the plant, 72 of them are foreign workers hired temporarily by the suppliers.
Speaking on AM800's The Shift, Windsor-Tecumseh MP Irek Kusmierczyk says their number one priority is to maximize the local workforce.
Kusmierczyk along with Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry of Canada, François-Philippe Champagne, have spoken with NextStar's CEO about the issue.
"Some of those are specialized workers that have specific knowledge and expertise, so they're required but we've been hearing loud and clear from the iron workers, from machinists, and from the CBTU and we are listening. We're paying very close attention, we're acting and we're raising those concerns directly with the CEO of NextStar," he said.
Kusmierczyk says they're also pushing NextStar to establish a working committee with local unions.
"Where the company and the skilled trades unions can work together and share and exchange information. Where concerns like those can be ironed out, but make no mistake, we absolutely expect to see our local workforce maximized at the battery plant. And that's the message that we delivered to the CEO of NextStar."
He says when the announcement of the battery plant was made, it was the single largest auto investment in the history of the country at the time which comes with heightened scrutiny.
"There's going to be some growing pains obviously, and at every turn we've always said to NextStar communicate, communicate, communicate. Work directly, meet directly with the skilled workers and with the unions. Get the information that they require, and we've communicated that all eyes are on this project because this is the first of many battery plants that will be built here," he said.
Kusmierczyk says once the plant is up and running they'll have 2,500 local, Canadian workers permanently building batteries at NextStar.
- with files from AM800's The Shift with Patty Handysides and CTV Windsor