Support For The Vale Inco Strike

Following yesterday's posting, we need all Workers Uniting Group Supporters send messages of support to the USW members on strike for ten weeks ate Vale Inco in Sudbury, Canada.

This news item came through from the International Metalworkers Federation. Please post on.

Global support to Vale workers in Canada
Canadian Nickel Strikers Receive Support from Labour Leaders from Around the World

CANADA: Some 3,000 people crowded into the Sudbury, Ontario, ice hockey arena on September 19 and enthusiastically greeted global trade union leaders in what was billed as an "International and Community Rally in Support of Sudbury's Strikers".

International union leaders, including IMF general secretary Jyrki Raina, Manfred Warda, general secretary of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), Sharan Burrow, president of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), and Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, Unite AGS Paul Talbot joined others to tell striking miners of the United Steelworkers (USW) that their nine-week strike against Vale has gained worldwide attention, and brought trade union pressure on Vale in all its global operations.

The strike started on 13 July after USW Locals 6500 in Sudbury and Local 6200 in Port Colborne, joined in a common labour contract, gave the world's number two nickel producer a ten-week extension back in May. But instead of reaching agreement, based on Vale's vast profit margins despite the global downturn, managers of nickel entity Vale-Inco pressed ahead with concession-ridden proposals that would deflate the livelihoods of 3,500 workers and their families in Sudbury and in Port Colborne.

Those concessionary proposals, still on the table, include retirement reductions, a two-tiered pension scheme, steep downgrades to a production bonus, and loss of value in cost-of-living adjustments. As well, Vale-Inco is seeking greater flexibility on outsourcing, standing as a serious affront to job security.

On August 1, 450 workers of USW Local 9508 in Voiseys Bay, Labrador, struck. Saturday's rally by the USW was to show strikers - as well as the rest of Canada and the world's mining industry - that global labour will stand together to prevent a prosperous metal-mining house from boosting its profit sheet at the expense of workers.


More coverage on the strike http://www.workersuniting.org/campaigns/support_usw_striking_miners_at.aspx