19 October, 2009
The day following the ICEM’s 9 October Presidium meeting in Hannover, Germany, ICEM Vice Presidents and several others, including representatives from host German union IGBCE, piled on a bus for a four-hour trip to the North Sea port of Brunsbüttel.
Their mission: to meet the Hong Kong-flagged MV Fedagawa, a vessel laden with 35,000 tonnes of copper concentrates that originated in Voiseys Bay, province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada, where union members of the United Steelworkers (USW) have been on strike against Vale-Inco since 1 August.
The purpose of the trip was to alert the ship’s captain and crew of the Canadian strike, who hopefully in turn would relay that message to Vale and the end-users of the copper. The mission proved successful, in large part, because of the intervention of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and its Hamburg and area ports Inspector Ulf Christiansen.
The mission was planned meticulously by the IGBCE’s International Department, together with the USW and the supporting Global Union Federations. At about 19h00 on 10 October, a team of six representatives from the international trade union contingent entered the locked-down Brunsbüttel port authority and met with the ship’s captain and a representative of the ship’s owner.
Senzeni Zokwan and Manfred Warda
That delegation consisted of ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana, General Secretary Manfred Warda, USW Canadian National Director and ICEM Vice President Ken Neumann, USW Local 9508 striker Curtis Saunders from Voiseys Bay, USW Local 6500 striker Aaron Beaudry from Sudbury, Ontario, and IGBCE International Department Officer Michael Wolters.
Neumann reported that both the captain and the ship owner’s representative were supportive and promised to raise the issue directly with Vale-Inco and with the metal companies that were purchasing the Brazilian company’s resources. Following the visit, the USW rank-and-file strikers left for Rônnskär, Sweden, where the MV Fedagawa was delivering part of the copper cargo to a nearby Boliden smelter. The copper concentrates had been stockpiled in eastern Canada since before the strike.
Federal Nakagawa's captain and the ship owner’s representative
The 9 October ICEM Presidium meeting opened with a review of the three-month Vale-Inco strike at three Canadian locations, and a unanimous resolution by the body to give support to striking USW members in every way possible. “We’ve had labour disputes with Inco before,” Neumann told the Presidium, “but since Vale bought out Inco in 2006, this is the first time they have tried to use scabs to begin production. This struggle will not be won by just walking picket lines, but with linking arms with global trade unions everywhere.”
The strike by 3,500 miners and metalworkers began on 13 July in Sudbury and Port Colborne, Ontario, following Vale-Inco’s demand for steep pension concessions, relaxed language on the company’s right to contract out bargaining unit work, an elimination of a production bonus. The strike spread to Voiseys Bay after 500 of the miners, working under a separate labour agreement, faced the same rash concessions.
Ulf Christiansen
“We owe tremendous gratitude to the ITF and especially Ulf Christiansen for arranging this intervention,” said the ICEM’s Warda. “This is just more evidence that the ICEM, together with its trade union partners, will broaden the strike to ensure that Vale knows, and its customers know, that mineral resources from Vale-Inco in Canada will be challenged in the global marketplace.”