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12 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 48/1998
Legal notice was lodged yesterday of intent to file a citizen law suit against Intertrade Holdings, Inc. for violations of US federal environmental laws. The notice was sent to federal and Tennessee regulatory authorities and to the company.
Intertrade Holdings is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Swedish-based Trelleborg AB and is in the process of being sold. The notice says the company has illegally discharged contaminated wastewater and metals into the Ocoee River from its sulfuric acid plant in Copperhill, Tennessee, in violation of the US federal Clean Water Act.
Filing the lawsuit are twelve local residents and two local businesses who use the Ocoee River immediately downstream of the Copperhill plant. Among them are a landowner with property alongside the river, three fishermen, and a whitewater rafting company.
"The river is important to our community," said Lance Luke, who manages a rafting company that regularly uses the river and is one of the citizen plaintiffs. "The Ocoee River received international attention as the site of the 1996 Summer Olympics kayak races and we still have regular competitions here. We need to make sure it is clean."
The citizen lawsuit was acknowledged today in a statement issued jointly by the International Chemical Workers Union Council of the United Food and Commercial Workers and the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers whose research uncovered the violations.
The 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) and its affiliated unions worldwide, particularly those in Sweden, have been pressing Trelleborg to resolve a long-running dispute at Copperhill.
Workers have been on strike at Copperhill since April 30 1996 over a unilateral management attempt to impose sweeping changes in work rules. The workers and their unions were all the more incensed by the management's attitude because the Copperhill workforce had made major economic sacrifices in the early 1990s to keep the plant going.
Worse was to come. The Copperhill management responded to the strike by "permanently replacing" the strikers - in effect, firing them and hiring strikebreakers instead. A legal loophole permits this practice in the US, provided the strikebreakers are dubbed "replacement workers." Having handpicked the strikebreakers, the management then announced that its new "workforce" no longer wished to be represented by trade unions.
On the pollution issue, Intertrade Holdings "has admitted in reports to the state regulators that it is discharging pollutants in excess of the limits," lawyers for the complainants said. "We are not talking about just one violation. There has been a pattern of violations stretching over years and it has continued unabated."
On May 13 this year, Trelleborg announced that it had reached an agreement to sell Intertrade Holdings to Marsulex, Inc., based in Canada.
Trelleborg has made repeated attempts to sell its US subsidiary in recent years, but unions in Sweden and elsewhere have emphasised that a sell-off would not absolve the parent company of its responsibility to tackle the industrial and environmmental problems at Copperhill.
"Once again, Trelleborg has shown itself to be a bad corporate citizen," said Nick Wimberley, secretary-treasurer of Boilermakers Local 586 and one of the citizen plaintiffs. "Residents of this community welcomed Trelleborg and helped the company in every way we could when it came here in 1990, but we have been rewarded with a corporate policy from Sweden that has shown a blatant disregard for our environment and our way of life."
Responding to the announcement of the company's sale, Wimberley said, "We will insist upon corporate accountability to our community no matter who the owner is."
Intertrade Holdings is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Swedish-based Trelleborg AB and is in the process of being sold. The notice says the company has illegally discharged contaminated wastewater and metals into the Ocoee River from its sulfuric acid plant in Copperhill, Tennessee, in violation of the US federal Clean Water Act.
Filing the lawsuit are twelve local residents and two local businesses who use the Ocoee River immediately downstream of the Copperhill plant. Among them are a landowner with property alongside the river, three fishermen, and a whitewater rafting company.
"The river is important to our community," said Lance Luke, who manages a rafting company that regularly uses the river and is one of the citizen plaintiffs. "The Ocoee River received international attention as the site of the 1996 Summer Olympics kayak races and we still have regular competitions here. We need to make sure it is clean."
The citizen lawsuit was acknowledged today in a statement issued jointly by the International Chemical Workers Union Council of the United Food and Commercial Workers and the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers whose research uncovered the violations.
The 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) and its affiliated unions worldwide, particularly those in Sweden, have been pressing Trelleborg to resolve a long-running dispute at Copperhill.
Workers have been on strike at Copperhill since April 30 1996 over a unilateral management attempt to impose sweeping changes in work rules. The workers and their unions were all the more incensed by the management's attitude because the Copperhill workforce had made major economic sacrifices in the early 1990s to keep the plant going.
Worse was to come. The Copperhill management responded to the strike by "permanently replacing" the strikers - in effect, firing them and hiring strikebreakers instead. A legal loophole permits this practice in the US, provided the strikebreakers are dubbed "replacement workers." Having handpicked the strikebreakers, the management then announced that its new "workforce" no longer wished to be represented by trade unions.
On the pollution issue, Intertrade Holdings "has admitted in reports to the state regulators that it is discharging pollutants in excess of the limits," lawyers for the complainants said. "We are not talking about just one violation. There has been a pattern of violations stretching over years and it has continued unabated."
On May 13 this year, Trelleborg announced that it had reached an agreement to sell Intertrade Holdings to Marsulex, Inc., based in Canada.
Trelleborg has made repeated attempts to sell its US subsidiary in recent years, but unions in Sweden and elsewhere have emphasised that a sell-off would not absolve the parent company of its responsibility to tackle the industrial and environmmental problems at Copperhill.
"Once again, Trelleborg has shown itself to be a bad corporate citizen," said Nick Wimberley, secretary-treasurer of Boilermakers Local 586 and one of the citizen plaintiffs. "Residents of this community welcomed Trelleborg and helped the company in every way we could when it came here in 1990, but we have been rewarded with a corporate policy from Sweden that has shown a blatant disregard for our environment and our way of life."
Responding to the announcement of the company's sale, Wimberley said, "We will insist upon corporate accountability to our community no matter who the owner is."