Following a ballot that saw 98 percent of workers vote in favor of striking, workers set up picket lines at the Falconbridge sites February 1. Rhiness told Militant reporters February 7 that the bosses aim “to build two new mines with nonunion contractors, and our union is not going to let that happen.” The new mines are planned for Nickel Rim South and Fraser-Morgan in the Sudbury area. Workers pointed out that such a step would violate the current contract, which states that all new mining operations opened by Falconbridge here will fall under CAW 598’s bargaining jurisdiction.

Bill Bush, a miner for nine years at Falconbridge, said, “contract workers get less than half the pay of unionized miners, have no health benefits, and work in unsafe conditions.”

The company’s drive to use contractors was a central issue in a strike three years ago that lasted more than six months. The 2001 fight ended with deep contract concessions by the union. In return, the company promised workers so-called job security.

Today union leaders estimate that 25 percent of Falconbridge’s workforce is nonunion. Only 50 workers were hired to replace the 206 union miners who retired over the last three years, they say. Meanwhile, the company boasts that productivity has gone up by 3 percent. Rhiness explained that the miners are striking to defend the union. “Falconbridge wants to wait for seven to eight years till there’s no ore left in its current mines, lay off all the union guys, and have contractors running the new mines,” he said as he offered visitors coffee and bowls of hot chili.

Company spokesman Dale Coffin complains that the union contract gets in the way of “flexibility to mine area ore zones in the future.”

Fourth-quarter profits at Falconbridge quadrupled in 2003, mainly because of the rise in the price of nickel. The metal is currently selling for US$7.50 a pound, a 15-year record. Falconbridge president Aaron Regent has said that he would rather lose money in confronting the union than “accept a solution which is neat in the short term but in the long term will significantly erode shareholder value and shorten the life of our assets.”

The bosses are using helicopters to fly in scabs and supplies to try to keep production flowing—a tactic they employed in the 2001 fight. In response, said Rhiness, the workers have held up scab buses and trucks for up to 13 hours by organizing car caravans to drive in circles around the smelter gate.

On the evening of February 7, retired Falconbridge miners organized a strike solidarity rally at the local hockey arena. Among the speakers was John Fera, president of United Steelworkers Local 6500. The Steelworkers organize miners at the Sudbury Inco mine, the second-largest nickel mine in the world and scene of a strike by 3,500 workers last year. Announcing a donation of $5,000 toward the miners’ strike fund, Fera said, “You were behind us when we went on strike for three months last summer to defend our health benefits and we will be with you now for every day of your strike.”

Support for the miners is building in the area as retired miners prepare hot food for the picket lines and the Family Auxiliary provides aid to the strikers’ families. The strikers have delivered leaflets to area residents around the smelter, offering to shovel snow as a gesture of solidarity.

Messages of support can be sent to Mine Mill and Smelter Local 598/CAW, 19 Regent St. South, Sudbury, Ontario, P3C 4B7. Daily strike updates are posted on the union web site at www.minemill598.com.  
 
 
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