By The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The president of a union local representing picketing Vale Inco workers says an ongoing strike isn't going to end any time soon.
"This is going to be a long strike. We have no optimism in this company," said Wayne Rae, president of United Steelworkers Local 6200 in Port Colborne, Ont.
More than 3,000 mine and mill workers in Sudbury, Ont., as well as employees of smaller Vale Inco operations in Port Colborne and Voisey's Bay, N.L., have been on strike since mid-July.
And with the company and the union still miles apart on the key issues, it could be quite a while longer before the labour dispute is resolved. The two parties haven't sat down at the bargaining table since the strike began.
United Steelworkers members held protests Wednesday in Toronto, Sudbury, New York and at Vale's headquarters in Rio de Janeiro to draw attention to the ongoing strike.
In Toronto, Rae said the union is prepared to go back to the bargaining table but the mining company has shown no willingness to compromise.
"We were prepared to have a status quo deal in place because we know the economy's bad, so we were prepared to just carry on with what we had. We weren't asking for any increases, but they didn't want that. They want to hit us for concessions," he said.
However, the company has also accused the union of inflexibility. When the strike began, Vale chief executive Roger Agnelli said Sudbury is the company's highest-cost operation and isn't sustainable at current prices levels.
But Rae said Vale Inco's parent company in Brazil is making huge profits, and accused it of "using the economy as a weapon against us."
Vale's net income for the year ended Dec. 31, 2008 was US$13.2 billion or $2.58 per common share. The company doesn't break down its earnings by country or operation.
At issue are proposals by Vale to reduce a bonus tied to the price of nickel and to exempt new employees from its defined-benefit pension plan, moving them instead to a defined-contribution plan.
This is the first major strike at Vale's Canadian operations since Brazil-based Companhia Vale do Rio Doce bought the former Inco Ltd. for $19 billion in October 2006. Previous work stoppages at Inco have been lengthy, including a three-month strike in Sudbury in 2003 and a two-month strike at Voisey's Bay in 2006.
Vale's Canadian operations include six nickel mines, a mill, a smelter and a refinery in Sudbury; a refinery in Port Colborne; a nickel-cobalt-copper mine in Voisey's Bay; and three nickel mines, a mill, a smelter and a refinery in Thompson, Man.
Vale has more than 100,000 employees around the world and is a global leader in the production of iron ore pellets, aluminum, coal, nickel, copper, steel and other resources.
It was set up by the Brazilian government in 1942 but is now privately run and trades on the Brazilian and New York stock exchanges.