The Globe and Mail (Toronto) - The costs of building vehicles in Canada must fall and match the costs of assembly in the United States, Chrysler Group LLC chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne says.
"You cannot have all things, you cannot have a strong currency, you cannot have an uncompetitive wage rate and then expect Chrysler or all the other car makers in this country to keep on making cars in this country and be disadvantaged," Mr. Marchionne said Tuesday after a speech to the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants in Toronto.
The recent agreement Chrysler reached with the United Auto Workers union has reduced the labour component of those costs to about $57 (U.S.) an hour less than hourly costs in Canada, Mr. Marchionne pointed out, although he would not provide the hourly wage costs at the company's two Canadian assembly plants and one parts operation.
But in negotiations next year on a new contract with the CAW, Chrysler will tell the Canadian union how many cars its U.S. plants make an hour, the number of hours needed to assemble a car and U.S. productivity.
"We'll tell them this is what it costs me to make a car [in Canada] and this is what it costs me to make it in the U.S. We need to find a way to make those numbers coincide."
He said he doesn't care how the company gets to those lower numbers in Canada.
Chrysler's minivan assembly plant in Windsor, Ont., and large car factory in Brampton, Ont., turn out about 30 per cent of the vehicles the company makes.
