The final of the contracts with Canada's Big Three auto makers has been agreed to, this time between the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and GM.
Like the deals with Ford and Daimler-Chrysler, this contract contains real gains for CAW members at Canada's largest automaker.
There is a 13.5 percent wage increase over three years, a 25-percent increase in basic pensions, and several other important improvements in benefits.
But in exchange, the CAW agreed to the shrinking of GM's workforce from 22,500 to less than 19,000.
In 1996 there were 26,000 CAW members working for GM.
In addition, there was no guarantee that the GM operation in Ste. Therese, Quebec will stay open beyond 2002.
Trading jobs for benefits allows GM to proceed with a restructuring plan that in the long run is very bad for rank and file auto workers.
GM wants to do less and less of the assembly of its vehicles in union shops, and rely more and more on outsourced, mostly non-union labour.
But the CAW leadership is disarming its members by talking about a "new relationship" with GM.
When the GM negotiating team came into the negotiating room at 10pm on the evening the deal was concluded, members of the CAW negotiating team rose and gave them an ovation.
The GM managers applauded in kind. "It went on for about eight minutes," said GM's chief negotiator Al Green.
"The feeling coming out of this is so good," said CAW president Buzz Hargrove, "that if we can translate that to the workplace, there isn't anything that can stop General Motors of Canada."
This is dangerous nonsense.
GM can afford to grant concessions now because of booming sales and record profits.
But we know from past experience that when the inevitable downturn comes, GM will turn on its employees with calculated savagery.
And it has every interest in befriending the union leaders, and quieting their fears, because they remember vividly just how powerful workers' strike action can be.
United Auto Workers (UAW) members struck in Dayton Ohio in 1995 and Flint Michigan in 1998, leading to massive plant shutdowns across the continent.
In October 1996, CAW struck for three weeks in Canada, leading to a shutdown of all Canadian operations, and some in the United States.
GM has yet to recover from the market share lost in these strikes.
It wants to pacify the union through talk of a "new relationship", but proceed apace with a restructuring plan that in the long run will bring the workers and management into bitter confrontations.
Rank and file CAW members in Oshawa are not fooled by talk of a "new relationship." In spite of the benefits won in the contract, 250 staged an hours-long wildcat to protest against heavy-handed management in Oshawa.
Hargrove opposed the wildcat, saying there was no reason for a strike.
But in the years to come, it will be that kind of rank and file self-activity, not cozy "new relationships" with management, that will win gains for auto workers.