UAW leaders in Michigan break with Fain on tariffs against Canada
Trade war between the U.S. and Canada 'does not make a lot of sense,' one union president says
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain has emerged as an unexpected supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs against Canada, to the frustration of workers north of the border.
But some of Fain's own leaders in Michigan say they don't support a trade war with Canada — a country they say has been both a friend and reliable partner to the U.S.
"They pay great wages over there, we pay great wages over here," said LaShawn English, director of UAW Region 1, told CBC News at an event in a Detroit suburb Tuesday. "There's no disadvantage between the two countries. And that tariff that [Trump's] putting on them should go away. I truly believe that."
English, who represents some Canadian workers at auto suppliers in southwestern Ontario, said she believes other union members feel the same.
"I think the ones in Michigan do because everybody in Michigan [knows] how closely tied in we are with Canada," she said.
Romaine McKinney III, president of UAW Local 869, says the trade fight between the U.S. and Canada "does not make a lot of sense."
"When the tariff issue began, one of the worst things that could have happened was the war between Canada and America," said McKinney, who represents workers at Stellantis' stamping plant in Warren, Mich.
The range of opinions within UAW leadership is emblematic of the union's diverse membership, as well as its heavy representation in border communities where the two countries have developed their auto sectors side-by-side over more than a century.
That history of co-operation is in part what fuelled outrage from Canadian labour leaders when the UAW first came out in support of Trump's trade moves, which experts have warned could heavily damage the continent's interconnected auto industry.
In early March, Trump slapped Canada and Mexico with 25 per cent tariffs on a broad range of goods, citing fentanyl and immigration concerns. In response, the UAW released a statement praising the president for taking "aggressive action on ending the free trade disaster that has dropped like a bomb on the working class."
Trump has since largely clawed back those levies, but has also hit all parts and assembled vehicle imports – including those from Canada — with 25 per cent tariffs. Canada has enacted retaliatory measures.
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In response to complaints from North American companies, the U.S. president has provided some tariff relief and exemptions to lessen the impact. Still, industry and union leaders in Canada say the trade war is hurting, not helping, workers on both sides of the border.
Already, some plants in both Windsor and Michigan have temporarily shuttered due to the tariffs, and backlash to the trade war has arisen in Congress.
In April, Fain hosted a livestream where he qualified his support of tariffs.
"We support some use of tariffs on auto manufacturing and other similar industries," he said. "We don't support the use of tariffs for political gains about immigration or fentanyl. We do not support reckless, chaotic tariffs on all countries at crazy rates.
"We absolutely support, and have always supported, tariffs on the auto industry ... The difference is, the auto tariffs are designed for a specific purpose. They raise the costs on the companies that have killed good jobs in a race to the bottom for cheap labour elsewhere, while Wall Street makes a killing."
Fain, who has focused his ire on automakers who shift production to Mexico, where workers earn lower wages and have fewer protections, has told at least one media outlet that he doesn't view Canada as the problem.
"Canada pays decent wages; they have good standards; they have good health care," he told Jacobin in early April. "They're not the enemy in this."
But Fain and the UAW have not responded to repeated requests for comment from CBC News on whether that means he wants to see Canada fully excluded from tariffs.
McKinney, the union leader at the Warren Stamping Plant, says he doesn't like the way Trump went about handling the tariffs.
"To drop them on everybody immediately at one time, I mean, how can you not think that that is a breach of trust that breaks their friendship?" said McKinney. "I think everything should have been incrementally installed. There should have been a plan laid out month to month, fiscal cycle to fiscal cycle."
McKinney said he does support "a kind of a tariff that would equalize things." But he says the current trade measures are "just decimating both sides," and that Canada's place in the auto sector is "probably the least of our concern right now."
"To say I am for the tariffs, I can't say that, but I am definitely for the United States of America working their members and their laid-off former members," he said.
English, the regional director, called on automakers such as Stellantis to use what the industry calls "white space" — unused capacity at existing factories – in the U.S. instead of offshoring production to countries like Mexico.
She said there are 3,000 laid-off workers in the region that are "sitting at home, don't know when they're gonna get called back or if they're going to get called back."
She said her Canadian members are worried right now as well because of the "uncertainties that are happening in the United States right now."
"It is going to hurt the Canadians and it's gonna hurt here," she said. "And with the president that we got, every day it changes. So it's almost like you really can't speak on tariffs because no one knows what he's going to do, right?"
But she was certain about one thing: "We've got to stop the fighting between Canada and the United States. Especially Michigan. [We're] tied in like this," she said, interlacing her fingers.
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With files from Chris Ensing