International Truck and Engine Corp announced that members of Local 127 and Local 35 of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) have ratified new labor contracts that will run through June 30, 2009, for the Chatham truck assembly plant.
Local 127 represents production and maintenance employees, while Local 35 represents office employees. The action modified contracts scheduled to expire Jan 31, 2007. International Truck and Engine is the operating company of Navistar International Corp.
Navistar announced in February that the company's board of directors had approved the company's overall heavy-truck strategy, which called for a total program investment of $300 million for introduction of a new line-haul Class 8 truck. At that time, no decision had been made on where the truck would be produced.
The new contracts maintain and improve manufacturing flexibility and provide for a purchased modular assembly strategy for the new line-haul truck scheduled to be introduced at Chatham and go into production in January 2007.
Chatham produces 421 heavy trucks per week, or an average of 84 trucks per day. Based on current demand, production is scheduled to increase to 110 units per day in late July 2004 after a scheduled two-week summer vacation shutdown.