Unifor Says Stellantis Has Sold Idled Brampton Plant to Roshel
Unifor believes Stellantis finalized the sale of its idled Brampton, Ont., plant to Roshel. What it means for 3,000 laid-off workers and strike talks.
Canada’s autoworkers union says it believes Stellantis has completed the sale of its idled assembly plant in Brampton, Ont., to armored vehicle maker Roshel. Unifor reached that conclusion on Friday after a meeting in which the automaker would neither confirm nor deny that the deal was final.
The plant near Toronto has been closed since 2023. Unifor represents about 3,000 laid-off workers there, according to The Globe and Mail, and a sale to a defense contractor would likely end hopes of car production returning to the site.
A refusal the union read as an answer
Unifor said it asked Stellantis for clarity on reports that the facility had changed hands. The company declined to answer and gave no timeline for when it would, the union said in an update posted Friday, according to AM 800 CKLW. Unifor national president Lana Payne told The Globe and Mail the union is treating that refusal as confirmation of the sale.
Stellantis spokesperson LouAnn Gosselin said the company had “nothing to announce” on Friday afternoon. Roshel declined to comment.
A person familiar with the matter told The Globe and Mail that an announcement is expected early next week. Under the plan that person described, Stellantis would sell the plant to Roshel and then lease it back for production. It is not clear what Stellantis would make there. The same person said Stellantis would also repay federal money it received to retool the plant after it closed.
How the Brampton deal got here
Stellantis, the parent of Dodge, Chrysler and other brands, had planned to build the Jeep Compass in Brampton. Last year it moved that plan to its plant in Illinois. Both Unifor and the federal government were angered, and Ottawa said the move broke the terms of Stellantis’ funding arrangement, The Globe and Mail reported.
The company later said it had a preliminary agreement to sell the plant to Roshel, which is also based in Brampton. AM 800 CKLW reported that Stellantis announced a signed memorandum of understanding with Roshel in September, while The Globe and Mail said the preliminary deal was disclosed in the summer. Stellantis repeated its position in a statement to the Globe on Thursday.
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and the office of Industry Minister Mélanie Joly did not respond to the Globe’s emails.
What this means for Stellantis workers in Canada
Unifor walked away from contract talks with Stellantis in September over the planned sale. Bargaining has not restarted, although the union, the company and government officials are still in contact, AM 800 CKLW reported.
In mid-October, more than 9,000 Stellantis workers in Canada voted 97.3 per cent in favor of strike action. The union has not said whether it will move toward a strike after the latest development.
For the laid-off Brampton workers, the change in use matters. Fraser Johnson, a professor at Western University’s Ivey School of Business, told the Globe that a plant run by Roshel, which builds armored vehicles in relatively small runs, would not bring the jobs, supplier purchases or other economic benefits of an auto assembly line. “There’s a significant number of people affected by this,” he said.
Johnson described the sale as part of Stellantis’ wider effort to deal with weak profits, low vehicle sales and excess capacity across the company. He said U.S. tariffs made the case for running the Brampton plant even harder to support. For Roshel, he said, the deal is a rare chance to buy a world-class factory.
Sources: AM 800 CKLW, The Globe and Mail
