Fiat Chrysler's Brampton assembly plant is finally getting its new paint shop, but the long-term plan for the factory, which employs about 3,500 hourly workers, remains unclear.
The plant, which assembles the Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger and Dodge Challenger, was shut down for five weeks this summer as the automaker retooled its aging paint shop.
FCA pledged to spend $325 million to renovate the paint shop. Union leaders hailed the investment as crucial to the plant's future, as it underlined the automaker's commitment to continue building vehicles in Brampton in the future.
However, there is uncertainty about the future of the plant in the long term.
Chrysler 300, Dogde Charger and Challenger Dogde are trying to survive in a tough market for cars in the United States and Canada, where FCA earns most of its profit margins from the Jeep and Ram brands. In fact, in the last few months the sales of the Charger and Chrysler 300 models have decreased by over 10%.
Kristin Dziczek, vice-president of industry, labour and economics at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., said it did not bode well for Brampton when former FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne said in June that the Charger and Challenger would not be built on its Giorgio platform, which underpins much of what FCA plans to build across its brands moving forward.
Instead of moving the two car models onto the Giorgio platform, as had been widely anticipated, Marchionne said FCA plans to upgrade the cars' existing architecture, which he said was more suited to the "American heritage" of the Dodge brand. His successor, Mike Manley, has pledged to follow Marchionne's five-year blueprint for the automaker.
The future of the Brampton plant again figures to play a prominent role in negotiations between Unifor and FCA during 2020 labour talks, said Tony Faria, co director of the University of Windsor's Office of Automotive and Vehicle Research.
"I think Brampton is still a concern," Faria said. "It's not the kind of investment that I would've liked to see that would've signalled they'd be there for a long time. So, I think that could be on the table again in the next round of talks".