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Vol. 73/No. 30      August 10, 2009

 
Canadian nickel miners strike Vale Inco
 
BY JOHN STEELE  
MONTREAL—After voting to reject Vale Inco’s final offer, 3,300 nickel miners in Sudbury, Ontario, set up picket lines July 13 at the company’s massive complex of mines and mills in the area. The workers are members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 6500. At the same time picket lines went up at Vale-Inco’s refinery at Port Colborne on Lake Erie where members of USW Local 6200 have also taken strike action.

The workers are trying to push back major contract concessions demanded by the bosses who claim that “Sudbury is Vale’s highest-cost operation and it’s not sustainable.”

The strikers’ Web site, www.fairdealnow.ca, reports that Vale Inco’s final offer demands takeaways from the workers’ pensions, cost-of living allowance, and the production bonus system. It also undermines job security through contracting out provisions along with “many other concessions.” According to the strikers, last year Vale made $13.2 billion in profits and currently has $22 billion in cash assets.

In March Vale Inco announced plans to lay off 423 workers in Canada, including 261 in Sudbury, and imposed a June-July summer shutdown there, reported the Globe and Mail.

“The mood is pretty upbeat here,” said picket captain Bob Ruff at the Clarabelle Mine Road near Sudbury. “We’re ready to sit it out as long as we have to.”

Workers at the company’s Voisey’s Bay operations in Labrador on Canada’s east coast have also voted massively to reject the same final offer and are set to begin a strike on August 1.
 
 
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