Needless to say, in May 2008, four or five months prior to our bargained deadline in which we normally do traditional bargaining, it was the CAW that went to the employers and saw this perfect storm brewing over our heads. We went to them and solicited an early intervention into our bargaining, and that saved the companies, combined, over a three-year period, $300 million per year in each of the three years of the collective agreement. Again, those numbers have been substantiated now in our recent bargaining.
In this particular set of negotiations we did a number of things. Obviously we froze our wages. For auto workers now, our wages will be frozen for five years. Retirees and cost-of-living improvements yearly will be frozen now until 2012. A number of health care benefits that are provided are now co-pay. There are significant dollar savings moving forward.
At the end of the day, I do want to point out that our objective was not to pick this particular issue or that particular issue. Our objective was to make sure that our hourly active labour cost was advantageous in Canada versus those we compete with. You could grab a host of things that we bargained and then take a look at what we were able to let go. The bottom line was to maintain our competitive advantage here in Canada versus talking about issues.