The final round of Detroit Three bargaining in Canada is arriving with unusually high stakes. Unifor is preparing to turn its attention to Stellantis after General Motors workers complete their ratification process, bringing thousands of Windsor and Brampton workers into negotiations shaped by much more than wages and benefits.
Windsor Assembly is operating on a dramatically different trajectory from Brampton Assembly. Windsor has regained production momentum and remains one of Stellantis’s largest Canadian workplaces, while more than 2,200 Brampton workers remain tied to an idled factory whose long-term future is now openly in question. With the existing Stellantis collective agreement expiring September 20, the bargaining table is becoming one of the most important places where Canada’s rapidly changing auto map will be contested.
Stellantis Is Next in Unifor’s Detroit Three Bargaining Sequence
Unifor entered the 2026 Detroit Three negotiations representing roughly 18,900 workers across Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. Ford was deliberately selected first to establish the economic and job-security pattern. After Ford workers ratified their agreement in July, the union moved to General Motors, where tentative agreements covering more than 4,600 workers were reached in August. GM ratification meetings were scheduled for August 29 and 30, clearing the way for Stellantis to become the final company in the bargaining sequence.
That makes the coming negotiations especially important for Stellantis workers. The existing collective agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. on September 20, leaving a relatively short window for the two sides to tackle issues that extend far beyond traditional bargaining demands. Stellantis employs or has on layoff about 9,140 Unifor members across its Canadian operations, making it the largest of the three Detroit automakers by Unifor membership. Decisions reached during these talks could therefore affect thousands of households from Windsor to Brampton and several smaller Stellantis facilities.
Windsor Enters the Talks With Scale—and Something Worth Protecting
Windsor Assembly represents the strongest part of Stellantis’s Canadian manufacturing footprint entering negotiations. Unifor counts about 6,400 members associated with the plant and related transportation operations. The facility builds vehicles including Chrysler minivans and Dodge products and remains deeply connected to the supplier network surrounding Windsor-Essex and the Detroit automotive corridor across the river.
The outlook improved when Stellantis confirmed plans to return Windsor Assembly to a three-shift operation beginning in the first quarter of 2026. For workers who had lived through layoffs and production uncertainty, bringing another shift back offered something increasingly valuable in Canadian auto manufacturing: evidence that the company still saw significant production demand at the plant. That does not eliminate the risks created by U.S. trade policy, changing vehicle demand or future product decisions. It does, however, give Unifor a functioning, high-volume operation to defend. Bargainers are expected to focus not merely on keeping Windsor open, but on ensuring the facility receives enough future products and investment to keep all three shifts viable.
Brampton Has Become the Much Harder Job-Security Fight
Brampton Assembly enters bargaining from almost the opposite position. More than 2,200 Unifor Local 1285 members have been on layoff since the plant was idled in December 2023 for retooling. The factory had been expected to gain production of a next-generation Jeep Compass, providing a new mandate after years of building Chrysler and Dodge vehicles. Instead, retooling was paused in February 2025, and Stellantis later shifted future Compass production to the United States.
The situation became more serious in August 2026. Unifor said Stellantis informed the union on August 12 that it intended to open discussions with another company about a possible sale of the Brampton site. The union said Stellantis was seriously considering closing and selling the plant, although no formal written closure notice had been issued. The distinction matters. Under the current collective agreement, Unifor says Stellantis must give at least one year’s notice of a closure or sale. For Brampton families who have already spent years waiting for production to return, bargaining may now determine whether that waiting ends with another vehicle—or with the loss of the plant altogether.
Ford and GM Have Raised Expectations for What Stellantis Must Deliver
Stellantis does not enter negotiations with a blank sheet of paper. The agreement reached first with Ford established the economic pattern Unifor intends to carry across the Detroit Three. The Ford settlement provided wage increases totalling nine per cent across the three-year agreement, along with pension and benefit improvements, signing payments and major Canadian investment commitments. Pattern bargaining gives Unifor a benchmark and limits the ability of later companies to argue that workers should accept materially weaker economic terms.
General Motors has added another important dimension: product and plant commitments. Its tentative 2026 agreement includes a proposed C$144-million investment tied to assembling the next-generation heavy-duty GMC Sierra at Oshawa Assembly. GM also agreed to protections surrounding its idled CAMI facility in Ingersoll. Those commitments reinforce the argument Unifor is likely to make at Stellantis—that a successful agreement cannot be measured only by hourly wages. For Windsor and especially Brampton, product allocation, investment and enforceable job-security language may be at least as important as the pay package workers ultimately receive.
U.S. Auto Tariffs Have Changed the Economics Behind Every Promise
Normally, negotiations would revolve around labour costs, production forecasts and competitive investment. In 2026, another factor sits over the table: the Canada-U.S. tariff confrontation. Canadian-built vehicles are already navigating U.S. automotive tariffs, and President Donald Trump has threatened to increase tariffs on Canadian automobiles, trucks and automotive parts to 50 per cent beginning January 1, 2027 if the broader trade dispute remains unresolved.
That uncertainty matters enormously in Windsor because vehicles and components move through a deeply integrated continental supply chain. It matters even more in Brampton because companies deciding where to assign future models compare plants across Canada, the United States and Mexico. A tariff that materially raises the cost of shipping a Canadian-built vehicle into the American market can alter those calculations. Unifor has repeatedly argued that U.S. trade policy is already discouraging investment and threatening Canadian jobs. Stellantis, meanwhile, has to make product decisions in a marketplace where the rules may change again within months. Bargaining is therefore taking place against an economic backdrop neither side fully controls.
Ottawa and Ontario Also Have a Stake in What Happens
The future of Stellantis manufacturing is not simply a private dispute between an automaker and its union. Federal and Ontario governments have previously committed substantial public support to the company’s Canadian manufacturing transition. In 2022, Stellantis announced a C$3.6-billion investment to modernize its Windsor and Brampton assembly operations and expand research and development activity, with government support attached to the broader effort to secure next-generation vehicle production in Ontario.
That history makes Brampton particularly politically sensitive. The earlier investment announcements were presented as a way to secure thousands of Canadian automotive jobs and transform both assembly plants for future electrified vehicle production. Windsor has continued operating and has regained a third shift, but Brampton remains idled. Unifor has said it intends to engage Stellantis executives as well as every level of government over the plant’s fate. For governments that spent years presenting Ontario as a growing electric-vehicle manufacturing hub, a permanent loss of Brampton Assembly would raise uncomfortable questions about whether previously announced investment strategies delivered the long-term production security workers expected.
The Real Bargaining Fight Is Likely to Be Over Future Product
Pay increases are tangible and immediately visible on a worker’s cheque. In auto bargaining, however, product commitments often determine whether those cheques continue arriving years later. Unifor Local 444 leadership had already signalled before negotiations that maximizing production at Stellantis facilities would be a major concern. With new vehicles planned across Stellantis’s global portfolio through the end of the decade, the union has a strong incentive to seek clearer answers about which products will be assigned to Canada.
For Windsor, that means protecting three-shift production and securing enough future models to prevent another cycle of layoffs as existing products age. For Brampton, the question is far more fundamental: whether Stellantis will commit another vehicle to the plant at all. A vague promise to explore options would offer limited reassurance after the Compass program was moved elsewhere. Workers will be looking for concrete investment, timelines and enforceable language. The experience of the past several years has demonstrated why. A plant can have modern equipment and an experienced workforce, but without a product mandate flowing down the assembly line, neither provides lasting job security.
What Happens in These Talks Could Reshape Stellantis’s Canadian Footprint
The coming weeks will reveal whether Stellantis sees Canada primarily as a core long-term manufacturing base or as a footprint that can be consolidated as trade conditions change. Windsor appears relatively secure in the near term, supported by thousands of workers, active production and the restoration of a third shift. The bargaining challenge there is to turn that momentum into durable commitments that extend beyond the current vehicle cycle.
Brampton presents the defining test. Stellantis has not formally announced a closure, and a possible sale does not automatically mean automotive production would disappear. But after nearly three years of idling, paused retooling and the loss of the planned Compass mandate, workers have reason to demand greater certainty. Unifor now has the economic pattern established at Ford and strengthened by investment commitments negotiated with GM. Its more difficult task will be translating that leverage into product guarantees at Stellantis. For thousands of Canadian auto workers, the most consequential line in the eventual contract may not be the wage increase. It may be the line explaining where Stellantis intends to build its next generation of vehicles.
