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By Carol Mulligan,
THE SUDBURY STAR - There is a one in a trillion chance Vale Inco will sweeten its final contract proposal, containing unacceptable concessions, before more than 3,000 United Steelworkers receive it at their information meetings Wednesday and Thursday, says USW District 6 director Wayne Fraser.
Contract talks broke off Monday at 11:30 a. m. between the Steelworkers and Vale Inco Ltd. after negotiators for the mining company told the union the proposal it had presented late Sunday night was its final offer.
Wayne Fraser, director of Steelworkers' District 6, told reporters Monday afternoon his bargaining team will recommend members reject the company's offer at ratification meetings set for Friday and Saturday, just hours before a 12:01 a. m. strike or lockout deadline July 12.
A rejection of Vale Inco's offer is essentially a vote to strike, although the bargaining committee was already given a 90% strike mandate in a vote held in May.
Both the union and Vale Inco insist they are ready to return to bargaining, but Fraser said he cannot see that happening unless the company changes its bargaining position.
Fraser told reporters in a small meeting room at the Radisson Hotel he was "really saddened and disappointed" that his union's efforts to bargain a collective agreement protecting the rights of members and the community had gone virtually nowhere since contract talks began April 7.
Fraser said he was outraged at the "arrogance" of Vale Inco, which is demanding major concessions from Steelworkers even though it has made more than $4 billion in profit in Sudbury in the last two and a half years -- more than the former "Inco made in 10 or 11 years."
Fraser would not get into specifics of Vale Inco's settlement offer before it is presented to members. But he said last week, his negotiating team was not prepared to accept a reduced pension plan for new hires and cuts to Steelworkers' nickel bonuses.
A source close to the negotiations told The Star the union is also fighting Vale Inco's intention to eliminate seniority-based rights that allow workers to bid on and transfer to jobs from one plant or mine to another.
Vale Inco's Sudbury spokesman, Steve Ball, confirmed talks broke off Monday after it became clear the two sides remain "far apart." Ball said Vale Inco is still committed to settling a successful collective agreement and is prepared to go back to the bargaining table.
When asked how Vale Inco could be committed to a settlement when it had not changed its contract offer in three months, Ball said the company's position from the outset has been that it will do what it must to protect the long-term viability of its Ontario operations.
While Vale Inco has made billions since it purchased Inco, it lost $75.9 million in the first quarter of this year and the Brazilian-owned company is determined to keep its "cash flow positive in all business cycles," said Ball. The union is charging that Vale Inco is using the excuse of a worldwide economic downturn to force concessions on Steelworkers.
Fraser accused Vale Inco of essentially "blackmailing" families and the community by citing a depressed world economy. Fraser vowed that members of USW Local 6500 in Sudbury and Local 6200 in Port Colborne, who bargain together, are prepared to take the "necessary steps to shut this company down" with a strike action.
Frustrated and angry, Fraser referred to Vale Inco's two-month production shutdown that is supposed to end July 27. If the company felt it needed to extend that shutdown to deplete nickel stockpiles, it should do the honourable thing and not force a strike, he charged.
If Steelworkers hit pickets Sunday, it will have a profound effect on the community, warned John Fera, president of USW Local 6500. Fera said Vale Inco keeps talking about the need for "change" in its workplace because of tough economic times, "but the problem is, all of their change is concessions."
The mining giant is "not crying poor," during contract talks, said the union chief. "It's just saying they're not rich enough."
Monday's turn of events saddened Homer Seguin, one of the city's most-renowned labour activists, who alleged Vale Inco clearly is attempting to provoke a strike. The company's demands for concessions are so dramatic and involve such fundamental principles; they cannot be accepted by the union, charged Seguin, 75, a Steelworkers leader for decades before he retired in the early 1990s.
"I really feel for the guys in this round of bargaining," he said. "It looks like the company is deliberately forcing a strike to push up the price of nickel." "It's a poor time for a strike, but the workers have no choice. I have no doubt that they're going to fight against this with everything they've got. It's going to be a tremendous blow to our community if there's a strike over take-aways. This is not going to be pretty."
Seguin is intimately aware of the implications of the concessions being sought by Vale on the major issues of pensions, seniority rights and nickel bonuses. He played prominent roles on the Steelworkers' bargaining committees that negotiated all of those contract provisions.
In 1963, Seguin was at the bargaining table when the union succeed in entrenching a pension plan into its collective agreement with Inco. Seguin also was there six years later when the union won seniority rights allowing workers to bid on jobs in other plants and mines. In 1985, as a lead negotiator, he helped the union negotiate its first nickel-price bonus clause.
All of those gains were achieved because the union sacrificed and compromised on other important issues, such as foregoing "significant wage increases," Seguin noted Monday.
"Don't ever forget, we negotiated the nickel-price bonus in lieu of wages. Inco had lost money for three years in a row -- three years -- so we said, 'when you start making money, we'll share in that prosperity, but we'll suffer with you in the bad times.'
"So when I hear that (Vale) wants to take these things away, I get really hot about it. These are major take-aways, not minor ones." With every passing day, Seguin said, Vale is making the case of critics who argue "the federal government never should have allowed the takeover (of Inco) by this foreign company."
Meanwhile, Mayor John Rodriguez became the latest Greater Sudbury politician to meet in Toronto with Vale Inco chief executive officer and president Tito Martins.
The message from Rodriguez following Monday's meeting was similar to the responses from local NDP MPs Claude Gravel and Glenn Thibeault, who met with Martins last Friday. The current bargaining impasse and prospect of a strike "may have come up" during his meeting with Martins, but it was not the central issue for the discussions, Rodriguez said.
"My meeting had nothing to do with (intervening in) the collective bargaining that's taking place," he said. "I think Mr. Martins knows how important Vale Inco is to the community," he added. "July 12 is the deadline, so the mayor is not going to insert himself between the parties in this process ... The last thing they need at this point is for a politician to go sticking his nose in it." The main topic for the meeting with Martins was to hear Vale Inco's "long-term plan, what's Vale's vision for Sudbury," Rodriguez said.
On that score, "we heard what we already know," he said. Martins "said they bought Inco to exploit and take the nickel. That's their aim and they're going to be here for the long term."
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