The company provoked the walkout around two major issues. Alcoa—which owns 75 per cent of ABI, while the remaining 25 per cent is owned by Alcan—has been trying to restructure the plant to be able to move workers around disregarding seniority and job classifications. The company also wants to contract out work normally done by unionized workers. Positions vacated by retiring workers are not being filled.

Guy, a production worker in the plant for 18 years, summed up the consequences of the restructuring this way: “If we let the subcontracting go by like that we’ll find ourselves with 200 unionized workers instead of 800,” he said. “They don’t replace those retiring.”

Guy Desrosiers, another production worker, added, “The fundamental reason we’re on strike is that they want to transform this plant into a low-wage plant. I am among the youngest. I feel threatened by their new policies. Those who leave will be replaced by low-wage earners.”

The union had tried other pressure tactics in face of the company’s policies. Before the strike there were 4,000 outstanding grievances.

“We had a collective agreement, but they didn’t respect it,” Jean Frechette told Militant reporters.

The other major issue concerns control of the pension plan. The union is demanding parity control and respect of an agreement made in 2000 that the company cannot stop paying into the fund if there is a surplus. Also the union wants to continue adjusting the payments to the cost of living. In addition to rejecting these demands, the company said it intends to drop the retirement bonus, which is equal to two weeks of wages for every year of service.

“When they play around with my pension, I don’t agree,” said Jean Rouleau, on the picket line.

Richard Marcoux, while explaining he was four years from reaching retirement, added, “It’s a bit normal that we want a parity committee on pensions. The company hears you but they don’t listen.”

The plant here, with a production capacity of 400,000 tons of aluminum a year, accounts for 7 percent of Alcoa’s total output. The company is using 100 managers to maintain production. Starting July 9, Alcoa announced the closure of one of three lines and said this would mean the elimination of 300 union jobs. Because of the procedures involved in the refining of aluminum, once a line is closed it takes several months and millions of dollars to restart it.

Clément Masse, the president of the union local, said July 10 that he and other members of the negotiating committee had just spent several hours on the picket lines discussing this attack. The strikers said that whatever happens, no one will be abandoned, even if not all of the 800 are called back.

Two weeks later, the company shut down a second line, leaving only one line in operation, with the goal of producing one-third of its previous capacity.

“Unions in Quebec have a tradition of solidarity” Masse said. There are several locals of the Steelworkers who are discussing concrete measures to support the strike, he added. The Alcan workers in the Saguenay-Lac St. Jean region extended their solidarity. The unionists at Baie Comeau, where Alcoa has another plant, have also expressed their support facing the same employer. Local 9700 is hosting a press conference July 28 in Bécancour with representatives of all the different unions in Quebec in the aluminum sector to express this unity and widespread support.

Interim vice-president of Local 9700 François Ayotte described solidarity from other countries. Steelworkers at Kaiser Aluminum in the United States have started a voluntary dues collection for the ABI strike. Unionized workers in France working for Alcan have said that they will refuse to do production usually done by the workers at Bécancour, Ayotte said.

On the second day of the strike, the company got a court injunction limiting the picket line to 10 workers and taking away the right of the strikers to check who and what is going in and out of the plant. There is a law in Quebec that in theory prevents companies from using scabs. If the union can’t check what is going in and out of a plant, though, this is hard to enforce.

Union officials have since been able to negotiate the injunction with the employer, now allowing 15 pickets per picket line. Unionists can now also listen to all exchanges between the security guards, letting people and commodities in and out of the plant, and can question the guards for more information.

Besides the courts, the company is using propaganda to isolate the strikers and undermine public support for their cause. Through the daily newspapers management suggests that the workers are only concerned with money. Strikers on the picket line, however, seem ready to answer Alcoa’s claims. One of the unionists, for example, told a local newspaper, “The guys here are fighting for their jobs and their pensions, but also for the future of their children.”  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home