2 November, 2009
The nickel and copper strike at three Vale-Inco Canadian locations by miners and metalworkers of the United Steelworkers (USW) has started to have a full global effect, following a burst of international activity in October and judging from scheduled actions in November and December.
Teams of strikers from USW Locals 6500, 6200, and 9508 will, over the next week, be on three continents spreading the message of their strike, and urging Vale’s customers, investors, and company workers everywhere to pressure the Brazilian-based company for a fair pair of contracts in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Newfoundland/Labrador.
If their missions are anything near as successful as the ones taken by Local 6500’s Aaron Beaudry and Local 9508’s Curtis Saunders to Germany and Sweden in mid-October – following a ship-load of Vale copper to markets – managers could re-think their game plan that 3,500 steelworkers will swallow concession-ridden contracts and instead decide to return to the bargaining table in the company’s better interests.
At the three-and-a-half-month point of the strikes, when USW is beginning to focus heavily on Vale’s customers and investors, the release last week of the company’s third-quarter numbers bear this out. For the quarter, Vale sold just US$31 million of nickel products from its six worldwide operations. This compares to US$79 million in second-quarter 2009, a quarter in which the three Canadian nickel mines were idled for market reasons. Vale’s overall net profit for the most recent quarter dropped 65%, while revenues fell 43%.
In a 29 October conference call to investment analysts, Vale admitted to a loss of US$500 million due to the three-and-a-half month strike in Canada. One of the three Canadian mines and smelting operations, Sudbury, is responsible for 5% of the world’s supply of nickel products.
What certainly is not helping Vale in the marketplace is what happened after workers Beaudry and Saunders tracked copper shipments from Voiseys Bay, Labrador, to Germany and Sweden last month. (See InBrief No. 142 here.) Following pivotal work done by German ICEM affiliate IGBCE and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), the striking local unions received a direct response from the chairman of the Works Council of the end-user.
Renate Hold of Hamburg-based aluminum-producer Aurubis, whose workers are represented by the IGBCE, wrote that “It came as a surprise to us that Aurubis AG accepted a delivery from Vale-Inco … to give you our support, we have held the first discussions with our Management and drawn their attention” to the dispute in Canada. (See the full letter here.)
Vale-Inco strikers Aaron Beaudry and Curtis Saunders (at left) with IF Metall workplace leaders at Boliden in Sweden
In Sweden, the result was much the same. Beaudry and Saunders left Germany and arrived in Sweden ahead of the laden with the remainder of the copper concentrate ore. At a copper smelter near Rönnskär owned by Boliden AB, ICEM affiliate IF Metall arranged a meeting with workplace leaders and managers of the metal-producer and Vale customer. The result was similar to Aurubis.
Roland Antonsson, IF Metall Rönnskär local branch President and a Boliden board member, said he would use his position inside the company to urge Boliden to reconsider its market relationship with Vale. Erik Andersson, IF Metall International Secretary, added in a newspaper account of the visit that it is up to Boliden now to “take a stand against the Brazilian company’s behaviour” in Canada. “Boliden has a code of conduct. Now they have the evidence.”
With USW now having a near-complete global customer list of Vale, the pressure will increase on Canadian managers to return to bargaining and retreat from a concessionary stance that would lower workers’ take-home pay, reducing pension levels, and create job insecurity through demands for flexible outsourcing. Additionally, USW will bring the campaign to the front door of investors, stressing negative social stigmas attached to investing in Vale.
Strike teams have fanned out in recent weeks to Australia, where the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) hosted them near Vale coal fields in New South Wales and Queensland. The team that went to Australia also went on last week to New Caledonia, where Vale is having difficulty in start-up of the Goro nickel and cobalt mine and processing plant. Cost over-runs have dragged on Vale and the project has soared from US$3.2 billion to US$4.3 billion. The company is struggling to meet yet another start-up date for early in 2010, and there are environmental matters to deal with on the French territory.
Meanwhile, the territorial government of New Caledonia has denied entry visas to migrant workers, staff Vale was counting on for the start-up.
This week, a strike team that will include the ICEM will visit the PT Indonesia Nickel Corp. in remote Sulawesi Province, where Vale controls 59% of a nickel mine and smelting operation that also has faced production problems of late. From there, the USW strike team will visit operations and customers in Korea.
From 11-18 November, another Canadian strike team will return to Brazil where workers will travel to several cities, including Brasilia where they will meet with Brazilian ministry officials about the strike and officials at the Canadian embassy. They will also meet with civil society groups and metalworkers’ union leaders, who themselves are in dispute with Vale due to company redundancies during the financial crisis.
The USW is also planning an event in early December in New York City. On 21 October, Vale cancelled its “Vale Day” at the New York Stock Exchange there because Canadian strikers descended on Wall Street for a spirited manifestation. Two days later, a similar event in London was cancelled when the UK trade union, Unite, joined USW strikers from Canada in protest.
Manfred Warda
“We are encouraged by the global pressure that is building,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, “and we hope that Vale and CEO Roger Agnelli are taking notice. As this momentum grows and the effects are felt, the burden will fall on the company to resume bargaining and negotiate a fair collective agreement with these proud workers.”
For further information on all activities, as well as Vale-Inco efforts to re-start the Canadian operations with replacement workers, visit the strike’s website at www.fairdealnow.ca.