"It's A War Zone Here" - Vale Inco Latest

From the Toronto Star.....

Workers' mettle gets test as Vale Inco strike drags into bitter northern winter , It's a war zone here. Their tactics are designed to provoke us like never before. They're not interested in getting back to bargaining.

SUDBURY–Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" is blasting from a satellite radio in the tent's makeshift living room.

A couple of plush La-Z-Boy rockers and a couch surround a blazing wood stove. The fresh Christmas tree in the corner gives the place a cozy holiday feeling.

Three hearty men in heavy overcoats and toques hover around the stove, slap their gloves and exchange brotherly greetings. The song ends and they step outside into another world.

There's not a lot of love or warmth there. They're on the picket line just after sunrise a few days before Christmas at Vale Inco's Clarabelle Mill.

It's a flashpoint in the five-month standoff between some 3,100 workers and one of the world's biggest mining companies.

The workers face a bitter wind, -20C temperatures and a company spending millions of dollars to keep them in line. Strikers walk the line and delay trucks and cars for 12 to 15 minutes before allowing them through to the sprawling mill up the road.

Then, they walk some more.

Guards from a Toronto security firm monitor their movements. There are cameras on telephone poles, industrial lights for surveillance at night and parabolic dishes to pick up conversations hundreds of feet away.

The two sides don't talk to each other. Like the ground beneath them, it's a deep freeze.

"It's a war zone here," says millwright and picket captain James Joudrey. "Their tactics are designed to provoke us like never before. They're not interested in getting back to bargaining."

Sudbury is used to strikes, but this one is different. It's not like the walkouts of 1958, 1966, 1969, 1978-79, 1982, 1997 and 2003. The change is apparent everywhere.

"There is no doubt this one is like no other (strike) in Inco's history," says Rick Bertrand, vice-president of United Steelworkers Local 6500, about the current dispute.

Some of those long strikes temporarily crippled the local economy because the city relied so much on "Mother Inco" and its payroll. In the 1970s, Inco represented 25 per cent or more of the local workforce. Now, it counts for less than 5 per cent.

The bustling city of 157,000 has diversified into other sectors, from mining innovation and equipment manufacturing to education, healthcare and tourism.

Some local manufacturers, retailers and families are hurting but the hardship isn't as widespread as in past walkouts, when children came to school with smaller and smaller lunches. Many families now have second-income earners to cushion the financial blow.

The big change is ownership. Vale SA, a Brazilian-based mining behemoth, is the new owner in town. The Brazilians are shaking things up: they have strong views on how to run a mining company and deal with workers.

Since taking control in 2006 from Inco Ltd. in a $19.4 billion deal, Vale has slowly overhauled operations with a sharp eye on cost-cutting and maximizing profit.

That change, and the resistance to some of it, is now starkly playing out at the Clarabelle picket line and the entrances to many other Vale Inco operations around the city.

Since the start of the strike in July, the two sides have not returned to the bargaining table. No one on the street, in the shops or other plants raises an eyebrow about the prospect of this walkout surpassing the 261-day strike in 1978-79, the biggest in Canadian history in terms of person days lost.

"This looks like 1978 but worse," says Bertrand.

The company, whose parent continues to post strong profits, is seeking changes so it can make money all the time in an industry notorious for up-and-down business cycles. It wants to reduce bonus incentives and pension plan costs, increase contracting-out and limit job transfers.

Vale says it expects production costs to rise as the mining infrastructure ages and it digs deeper in the Sudbury ground, one of the richest nickel deposits in the world.

"On top of that, the global nickel market is becoming increasingly competitive with world nickel inventories approaching all-time highs," adds Inco spokesperson Cory McPhee.

"It is against that backdrop we are positioning ourselves. We are building a long-term, sustainable future in the nickel business."

The union has remained firm. It refuses to accept concessions at a profitable company marching to the drumbeat of globalization. "It's more about them showing their power," the burly Bertrand says.

Animosity and cynicism toward Vale is rampant among workers. They say the company will pay dearly in future productivity and profits when the strike ends.

Second- and third-generation Inco lifers vow they will never recommend working there to sons, daughters, relatives or friends under the new regime.

Veteran mill labourer Roger St. Amour says Inco had improved labour relations during the past two decades, but the new owners have destroyed all trust.

"Vale is used to treating people poorly in third-world countries and they expect to eventually do the same here, but it's not going to work," he says, standing beside the tent's tree with industrial-looking ornaments and a star on top with the words "Shame on Inco."

Labour relations under the old Inco had matured to the point where the company and union respected each other's positions during strikes, despite inevitable hard feelings. The company never mined or processed ore and the union minimized flare-ups.

But when workers walked off the job in July, Vale jolted the Steelworkers by quickly announcing it would soon start some mine production with salaried staff and other unionized workers not on strike.

The company expanded its work to moving ore to the mill and is now training staff to run the nearby smelter. "In the absence of any willingness by the union to negotiate, we can't allow our operations to sit idle," McPhee says.

One union leader suggested the decision would enrage workers and trigger picket line violence. But seasoned Inco strike watchers say the walkout has been relatively peaceful and a far cry from past disputes, when some workers toted guns on the line. In one strike, a worker drove a trunk full of dynamite to a plant gate in a show of force.

Vale has still gone to court three times, charging that the union and its members are breaking labour laws governing picket-line activity. The company has also fired some workers and this week slapped a multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit on seven employees for allegedly defying court orders, threatening people, disrupting production and causing monetary damage.

Although Inco is generating some revenue, it is still losing millions every week. On the other side, the union estimates it is paying out about $650,000 weekly.

The union is paying strikers $200 a week plus life insurance, emergency dental work and prescription drugs. It added a holiday gift of $100 and organized a children's Christmas party.

The union also runs a food bank for needy families and some Sudburians have "adopted" them during the strike.

Business is feeling the effects, but the economic hit is harder on local manufacturers than retailers.

The mining equipment manufacturing sector, which has grown significantly during the past two decades and relies less on Inco than in the past, is still feeling some of the sting, according to Dick DeStefano, executive director of the Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association.

"Some companies have had to cut back," he says. "There is job sharing and layoffs."

Gary Cormier, manager of the Notre Dame Boys furniture and appliance store, says his firm is "holding its own" but that could change dramatically after the Christmas season. "January could be the crusher," he says.

Across the city at a small Home Hardware store, owner Michael Skakoon has noticed no real decline and found that strikers are finding the time to buy his goods for house repairs and renovation projects.

"I've had more guys coming in for household repairs than ever before," he says.

While the community and many businesses generally support the workers' cause, there is an element of indifference to their plight by some people.

They don't feel sorry for workers who earn the city's top industrial wages of $29 an hour, plus periodic big bonuses, and spend freely while they make less.

Mayor John Rodriguez, who has openly supported the strikers, says there is some jealousy and a lack of understanding by other workers, pointing out that everyone in the city benefits when Inco workers are spending freely.

City council unanimously passed a resolution for both sides to return to bargaining before the strike starts causing long-term damage to the city. That was more than two months ago.

Back at strike headquarters, Bertrand says if Inco manages to restart the smelter and smoke rises from the Superstack, the strike will take on a new dimension

"The fight would go up a few levels in terms of anger and all hell could break loose," he says.

"Vale underestimates the strong labour history here and what our forefathers fought for to give us the quality of life we have today.

"We're not giving that up."

Unite and Workers Uniting are fully behind our brothers and sisters in the USW in Sudbury. Please send them messages of support and donations. Remember there are over 4,000 USW members on strike!

http://unitingworkers.net/our_issues/support_usw_striking_miners_at/show_your_support.aspx