CANADIAN car workers have voted to ratify a three-year contract agreement with General Motors, their union announced on Sunday.

Members of Unifor, the union representing about 4,300 Canadian workers at three Ontario GM facilities, voted 80.5 per cent in favour of the deal, the union said in a statement.

Unifor members voted to accept a deal that followed one already reached with GM’s major competitor Ford.

This now just leaves Stellantis of the “Big Three” North American car-making companies without a contract agreed with Unifor.

Talks have yet to begin with Jeep-maker Stellantis, which has the largest Canadian manufacturing footprint of Detroit’s three car-makers.

The agreement with GM came after a brief strike last week by the workers at the company’s factories in Oshawa and St. Catharines, Ontario, and a parts warehouse in Woodstock, Ontario.

GM said in a statement that the deal recognises worker contributions while positioning the company to be competitive in the future.

Unifor said that the deal includes pay raises of nearly 20 per cent for production workers and 25 per cent for skilled trades. 

Workers would get 10 per cent in general pay raises in the first year, with 2 per cent in the second and 3 per cent in the third. 

The company has also agreed to restore cost-of-living pay raises starting in December 2024. 

Temporary workers would get pay raises, and those with at least one year of service would get permanent jobs.

Workers who are currently on a defined-contribution retirement plan will move to a new defined-benefits pension from January 1 2025.

Unifor is Canada's largest private-sector trade union, representing about 315,000 workers in many industries.

In the United States, strikes continue by the United Auto Workers union, where nearly 34,000 workers have been in dispute over their contract with the Big Three since mid-September.