AMERICAN LABOUR ILLINOIS:

A THING THAT SCABS SHOULDN'T TOUCH:

There are some things that inexperienced and ignorant people just should not touch. One of the biggest things would be a nuclear power plant, but that is exactly what Honeywell did when they hired scabs to replace the employees that they locked out. The predictable result..."ooops". Here's the story from the AFL-CIO blog.

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Explosion at Honeywell Nuclear Plant Staffed by Strikebreakers

This past weekend, just one day after the federal government allowed Honeywell to start up core production at its uranium enrichment facility in Metropolis, Ill., with replacement workers, an explosion rocked the plant. No one was reported injured, but local union officials say the plant has not been in production since the blast.

For the past two months, union workers, members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669, have been locked out of the plant after contract negotiations broke down over Honeywell’s demand that workers give up their retiree health care coverage and pension plans. Other issues include management demands to eliminate seniority, contract out about 20 percent of the work at the plant and make changes in overtime pay.

Local 7-669 President Darrell Lillie says negotiations will not resume until Oct. 11. In the meantime, the workers are running a 24/7 picket line. Last month, 3,000 people from four states rallied in support of the locked-out Metropolis workers.


Safety is important at any worksite, but especially at the Metropolis plant. This facility is the only one in the United States that can convert uranium into the extremely deadly UF6, which is used in nuclear reactors. Since it is the only conversion plant of its kind in the country, it is critical that workers in the plant be familiar with that plant.

Lillie says it takes many years to learn the skills needed at the plant and the conversion process is hard to troubleshoot if something goes wrong.

Honeywell CEO David Cote, a member of President Obama’s deficit commission, locked out the 230 workers on June 28, even though they offered to continue working under the terms of their expired contract. Honeywell had proposed eliminating retiree health care and increasing workers’ out-of-pocket health care maximums to $8,500 a year.

In a letter to President Obama, the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR) asked the president to remove Cote from the commission.

AMERICAN LABOUR NEW YORK:

SCABS IN THE SAUCE:

Molly has blogged before about the strike at the Mott's facility in Williamson New York. The strike continues, and the company has hired scabs to try and break the strike. The following appeal from the American Rights At Work group asks you to register your support for the striking workers.

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Tell Mott's: get the scabs out of your applesauce!
Even in a depressed economy, Mott's – the huge applesauce and juice company – is thriving. Just last year, its parent company earned $555 million in profits.

But instead of rewarding its workers for that success, Mott’s is keeping all the profits – and then some. At one facility in Williamson, NY, management tried to slash workers’ wages by as much as $1.50 per hour AND take away their pension plan! And when the workers went on strike, Mott’s hired strike breakers – otherwise known as scabs – to cross the picket line.

Tell the President of Mott’s parent company: Mott's workers deserve better!

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THE LETTER

Please go to this link to send the following letter to Mott's management.

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As a consumer who cares about how a company treats its workers, I am writing to express my concern about the Mott's facility in upstate New York. It has come to my attention that strike breakers are being brought in, and that Mott's management continues to avoid negotiating with workers fairly.

Mott's is a profitable and financially healthy company, and it's outrageous that the company would seek to take advantage of a distressed economy to inflict further economic pain on workers in upstate New York. Mott's actions also threaten to put hundreds of independent apple farmers out of business. I urge you to work with the union to reach a fair contract that protects workers' pay and retirement.

CANADIAN LABOUR-NEWFOUNDLAND:

VALE INCO THREATENS SCAB START UP IN LABRADOR:

The strike of Local 9508 of the USW against Vale Inco in Voisey's Bay Newfoundland has been ongoing since August 1. Just like in Ontario the company is determined not to give an inch, and they have now threatened to reopen production using non-striking workers. Here's the bare facts from the Canadian Press.

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Non-striking workers to restart mine in Voisey's Bay, N.L. after talks break down:
TORONTO — Brazilian miner Vale Inco says it will resume production at its Voisey's Bay mine in Labrador after contract talks with its union broke down over the weekend.

The company will use non-striking employees to do the work of striking miners.

The United Steelworkers agreed to go back to the bargaining table in Labrador after Vale submitted a new proposal workers called "conciliatory."

However, labour talks broke down almost immediately.

Workers in Voisey's Bay have been on strike since Aug. 1, when they joined more than 3,000 striking Vale employees in the northern Ontario city of Sudbury.

The company accused the Steelworkers of using their Labrador members as leverage for the ongoing strike in Sudbury, where no talks have been scheduled.

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Here are more details from the CBC.

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Vale Inco to resume Voisey's Bay mine despite strike:
Announcement comes day after talks to end Labrador mine strike break off
Less than 24 hours after talks to end a dispute between striking Labrador nickel mine

workers and Vale Inco broke off, the company has announced that it will resume production.

In a release late Monday afternoon, the company said it will start training on-site employees who are not on strike, and will resume operations once that training is complete.

The striking workers, represented by the United Steelworkers Union, have been off the job for almost six months in a dispute where the contentious issue appears to about the company's proposal to freeze wages and roll back an employee bonus plan.

"Although we would prefer to be operating normally," said Bob Carter, spokesperson for Vale Inco in Newfoundland and Labrador, in the release, "the local USW negotiating team remains unable to bargain with authority in Newfoundland and Labrador.

"As such, the resumption of production is the most responsible course of action for the business. It enables us to provide meaningful employment for the more than 250 employees who are not on strike and it helps meet the needs of our customers who rely on us," he said.

Carter told CBC News that the on-site employees the company plans to use to restart the mine are non-unionized.

The release said that during three days of negotiations, the union's negotiating team "refused to engage in any meaningful discussions on monetary issues."
Still seeking concessions: union
The union representing workers told CBC News earlier that negotiations to reopen the Voisey's Bay mine in northern Labrador broke off after 11 p.m. NT on Sunday.

Steelworkers union representative Boyd Bussey told CBC News that Vale Inco is still seeking concessions from the striking workers.

The company has been looking for a three-year wage freeze and wants to roll back an employee bonus tied to the price of nickel.

Bussey said the company wants to be able to contract work out to non-union members.

He said that after three days of negotiations, the two sides are still a long way from reaching a deal.

"I see us further apart, actually very, very disappointing," said Steelworkers representative Boyd Bussey
'We're at an impasse'
Bussey says the company stonewalled on everything from money, to contract length, to the suddenly-thorny issue of contracting out work to non-union companies.

"This issue has really, really become very important for the union," said Bussey. "It's pointless for us to even get increases in wages if we're not going to have jobs, if they're going to contract our jobs out."

Before the decision to restart the mine was made public, Vale Inco officials said it was the union that stalled the talks.

"There's no tentative agreement, unfortunately, we're at an impasse. From our perspective, it was very apparent that the Steelworkers were not prepared to conclude a deal with us," said company spokesman Bob Carter.

Both sides said they're prepared to sit down to talk again, but nobody's saying when that might happen.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/01/25/nl-inco-talks-125.html#ixzz0dq3lcqpF

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Ah, but the union seems to have secret allies in this dispute- a combination of Mother Nature and management ignorance. The ore that is mined in Voisey's Bay is not processed on site. It has to be shipped elsewhere, either to Sudbury or to Thompson in Manitoba. There's a little problem with that right now; it's called "winter". The following article from the Sudbury Star explains this a bit more. The whole scenario conjures up an amusing comedy sketch of some lower level office flunky trying to explain "freeze-up" to one of the higher ups down in Rio Di Janeiro. Never let reality get in the way of a good management plan I guess. Whether the plan is demented or not.

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Nature may thwart Voisey's Bay production:

By CAROL MULLIGAN

THE SUDBURY STAR
Vale Inco's decision to resume production in Voisey's Bay during a strike is an in-your-eye gesture to Steelworkers, says the director of the union for Ontario and the Atlantic provinces.

But Mother Nature may thwart plans to move nickel concentrate produced in Labrador out of the province, says Wayne Fraser.

"The seaways are closed until April," said Fraser, director of USW District 6, on Tuesday.

He also questioned the ability of Vale Inco Newfoundland and Labrador to "be successful in mining, milling and doing all the things they need to do in Voisey's Bay with a very small amount of people, unqualified people."

Vale Inco Newfoundland and Labrador spokesman Bob Carter said the company is training its workforce that is not on strike.

About 200 members of USW Local 9508 have been on strike since Aug. 1 over issues such as contracting out and the nickel bonus. The company has another 250 or so employees.

A recent set of talks between the company and the union ended unsuccessfully late Sunday.

"Training will take as long as is required to ensure that people who are assigned new duties are able to do them safely, which is our top priority, and competently," said Carter in an interview from St. John's, NL.

"When we are at a point that we feel the workforce is ready to begin production, we will do so."

Vale Inco Newfoundland and Labrador operates an open pit mine and mill at Voisey's Bay.

Because the operation went into production in 2005, programs and trainers are still in place "to move forward," said Carter.

Fraser said Vale Inco Newfoundland and Labrador's decision to resume production is "very clearly an attempt by Vale to say, 'In your eye, Steelworkers. In your eye, members of the Steelworkers' union. We're going to try to do what we can to move ahead with our plans.' "

The District 6 director challenged critics who claimed the bargaining committee for USW Local 9508 had no authority to make decisions during negotiations -- "that everything was being controlled by Sudbury.

"That's an absolute lie," said Fraser. "Our (Voisey's Bay) bargaining committee was there to try to get a deal."

What stopped them, said Fraser, "was the company's insistence they have a right to contract out any kind of work the members are currently doing. The bonus remained as they proposed.

They even want to change the term of the contract. A lot of issues were not addressed by the company," he said.

Feed from Voisey's Bay is usually sent to Vale Inco's Ontario and Thompson, Man., facilities for further refining.

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So Molly leaves you with the image of 50,000 dog teams valiantly struggling across northern Québec and Ontario (and maybe into Manitoba too) bringing the ore to Sudbury or Thompson. It's the sort of thing of which epic movies are made. To follow this important Canadian strike check in regularly to the strike support site Fair Deal Now.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-IRELAND:

DUBLIN STRIKE SUPPORTERS INVADE DOCKYARD GATE:

Molly has often expressed the opinion that strikes are best carried out by the most militant methods possible, with the caveat that violence should be avoided if at all possible. In the long term view all strikes are episodes in a class war that demands both the greatest initiative on the part of the dispossessed and also the demonstration on their part of a superior moral sense.

A recent action in Dublin Ireland fulfills both these criteria. Supporters of the striking Dublin Port Workers have invaded the offices of Marine Terminals Ltd. Here's the story from the Irish Times.

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Supporters of striking port workers breach Dublin dockyard gates:

TIM O'BRIEN
IN an escalation of an eight-week dispute, supporters of striking Dublin Port workers breached dockyard gates in the south port yesterday, entering the offices of Marine Terminals Ltd.
Up to 600 marchers attended a rally in protest against Marine Terminals’ demands for compulsory redundancies and new pay and conditions at the cargo handling facility.

Marchers had heard that the owners of Marine Terminals Ltd, UK firm Peel Ports, had brought in outside labour, when about half of the attendance breached the company gates, shouting “Dockers in, scabs out.”

A number of people entered booking offices before a large crowd moved to the gates of a container yard, and then to Marine Terminals’ administration offices, where their way was blocked by a Garda.

Rally organisers asked the crowd to respect the Garda and not to cause any damage, while a number of speakers, including two members of Dublin City Council, addressed the crowd from the doors of the administration block.

Windows in the block were locked and blinds closed during the protest, but nearby cameras on Portakabins rotated to follow the crowd.(Oh really, I wonder how many of these cameras are set up to catch criminals in the rough areas of Dublin rather than protesters ?-Molly)

Earlier, Siptu general secretary Joe O’Flynn had told protesters that if a solution was not found to the dispute, damage to businesses in the port would spread to the wider economy.

He accused Peel Ports of “bullyboy tactics” against decent employees, many of whom had worked in the company for years.

Mr O’Flynn said the company has consistently set its face against serious engagement with the workers, “steamrolling through mass redundancies and threatening further job losses, as well as cuts in pay and conditions”.

Even before the strike began, he claimed, the company had brought in strike-breakers from Scotland and Northern Ireland.

“I can tell them now that we do not need investors with that mindset in Ireland and if they are not prepared to change it, they should leave now and hand over the facility to a company that will behave within decent business norms,” he said. (Uh, say "duh", a much better "threat" would be to say something about handing the business over to a producers' cooperative of the dockworkers. This, of course, is beyond the present horizon of the official trade unions )

Peter Bunting, assistant general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said members would “name and shame” the “scabs” in their own communities and addressed his comments in personal terms to a Marine Terminals manager, John Rafferty.

He was also critical of the media, saying that if the unions had treated the State’s industrial relations machinery with the same disdain as Marine Terminals had, the unions would be “excoriated”.

Messages of support were read from dockers’ unions in Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands, where it was claimed members of the FNV union occupied the head offices of Peel Ports’ subsidiary BG Freight at Bondgenoten for three hours from 10am to 1pm Irish time.

FNV has also served three weeks’ strike notice on BG Freight, as required by Dutch law, to begin industrial action there if the Irish dispute is not resolved in the meantime, it was claimed.
In a statement issued after the rally, Marine Terminals Ltd said “encouraging a crowd, including children, to enter a busy industrial site is dangerous and irresponsible and as a negotiating tactic can only be counter-productive.”

The company said “unions must recognise that, for the port of Dublin to remain competitive in a deteriorating market, changes must be made. Their intransigence will only hurt their members’ interests.”

A spokesman insisted six workers had been offered in excess of €70,000, while 16 had been offered in excess of €60,000 and “the average payout is €35,000 to €40,000”.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times.

CANADIAN LABOUR-SUDBURY:

CAN SCAB LABOUR BE SAFE LABOUR ?:

As the strike against Vale Inco facilities in Sudbury, Port Colborne and Voisey's bay continues, with no foreseeable resolution, management has begun to "train" supervisory personnel in production skills, with the obvious goal of having a contingent of people able to "instruct" future scab labour. To say the least this is likely to result in some potentially unsafe situations. Here's a story about what is happening with this from the Sudbury Star. The following came to Molly's attention via the strike support site Fair Deal Now.

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Steelworkers fear for safety if production restarts during labour dispute
Posted By CAROL MULLIGAN,

THE SUDBURY STAR
About a dozen non-union employees with Vale Inco Ltd. are taking part in train-the-trainer sessions at the company's nickel refinery this week to become qualified to train others in mining skills, says a Vale Inco spokesman.

Steve Ball said the company is running the sessions as part of Vale Inco's contingency plans related to the current strike.

More than 3,050 production and maintenance workers in Sudbury and about 130 in Port Colborne, members of United Steelworkers Locals 6500 and 6200, went on strike July 13 after three months of negotiations failed to produce a new collective agreement.

Ball confirmed Tuesday that "a variety of people" are being trained to conduct future instruction in "a variety of skills." Some of those nonunion employees may be called upon later to do the job of striking Steelworkers.

Vale Inco "is not ruling out that possibility," Ball said.

"We are continuing to explore all of our options and we're not closing the door on anything -- including resuming some degree of operations," said Ball.

The former South Mine manager said he wasn't certain who was attending the training sessions or if more sessions would be held as required by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.

The ministry requires that "people get qualified in work, in mining plants, by qualified instructors," said Ball.

He said Vale Inco would look at "what we think the business needs. Right now, we've started one train-the-trainer session."

Vale Inco, previously Inco Ltd., has never before operated its plants during labour disputes. Ball said in previous strikes, operations basically stopped overnight and staff ran them for care and maintenance only.

"So we have run them in some fashion before. And as I said, we're just reviewing all options right now."

Running its operations for production "has not been ruled out," Ball said.

USW Local 6500 president John Fera said his union was trying to get to the truth behind speculation that managers and staff were being trained to do strikers' jobs.

"There's always a possibility," said Fera, adding: "These are highly skilled jobs. It takes a lot of training not only to run a production unit, but to safely run a production unit.

"Anybody can push a button," said the union chief, "but it takes trained personnel to make sure a machine runs safely."

Fera said Vale Inco officials would be concerned about the quality of the product the company was turning out if they had people who weren't skilled controlling production.

But Fera said the current labour dispute "doesn't seem to be about production or the price of nickel for Vale. So you really never know what they're going to try. But I think they would certainly know what the response of the community would be."

Getting nickel ore from underground operations through crushes and mills, smelters and refineries, is a complicated process, said Fera.

"If you have people that are unfamiliar, it becomes a very dangerous practice. These are not candy factories that we work in ... you know how hard the Steelworkers work at making better workplaces, safer workplaces.

"I think it would say something about Vale if they disregarded all that work that's been done and tried to put people in there who really didn't have the qualifications," said Fera.

Ball said there is plenty of "speculation and rumour about what limited operations means to different people. And in what order operations might resume. So, as I said, we're considering all options and what would be in the best interests of our business. So at this time, all options are under review."

Members of Locals 6500 and 6200, which bargain together with Vale Inco, said they rejected the company's settlement offer because it contained concessions, such as a less desirable pension plan for new hires, reduced nickel bonuses and limits on seniority transfers to different workplaces.

Vale Inco official have maintained the aim of their proposal was to preserve the company's financial viability and remain cash positive in all business cycles.

For more about both sides in the dispute, visit the USW website www.fairdealnow.caor Vale Inco's www.valenegotiations.com.

CANADIAN LABOUR-ONTARIO:

SCAB LABOUR = BAD LABOUR:

The following item about the ongoing strike at the Lanark County Assisted Community Living in Ontario is from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).

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Striking ACL Lanark workers concerned about replacement workers:
Members of CUPE 1521-02, on strike against Community Living Lanark, have expressed great concern over the care their clients are receiving at the hands of replacement workers.

“We have seen things from the picket lines at the residences that concern us,” said CUPE 1521-02 Unit Chair Karen Bowes.

“We have witnessed incidents where replacement workers are not following basic daily routines including behavioural guidelines and health and safety practices,” Bowes said, adding that “one incident involving the inappropriate restraint of an individual with developmental challenges forced striking members to call the police.”

CUPE rep Doreen Beath told the Ottawa Citizen August 5 the two sides were prepared to go back to the bargaining table. But as of publishing, no date had been set.