Steelworkers reply to Rowswell's Vale Inco letter

Following is a United Steelworkers "open letter" response to Sault Ste. Marie Mayor John Rowswell's November 2, 2009, letter regarding the Vale Inco strike in Sudbury and other Ontario communities.

************************* Dear Mayor Rowswell,

The United Steelworkers union (USW) welcomes and appreciates your letter released today calling for an urgent resolution of the 15-week strike at Vale Inco operations in Sudbury, Port Colborne and Voisey’s Bay.

Mayor Rowswell raises important issues and concerns that are shared by the USW, its members and residents and fellow leaders of all affected communities. We share the uncertainty and distress caused by an unnecessary labour dispute, provoked by the unreasonable agenda of an ultra-wealthy, foreign corporation. Despite its exceptional wealth generation, this corporation remains intent on attacking the standard of living of Canadian working families and exporting ever greater amounts of wealth from Canadian communities.

The agenda of Brazil-based Vale SA does indeed, as Mayor Rowswell points out, undermine the economy of communities in Northern Ontario. And the economic damage threatened by Vale’s agenda is not confined to the serious, but short-term effects of this labour dispute.

Vale’s attack on the incomes and pensions of its Canadian workers, if successful, would inflict permanent economic damage on our communities. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of jobs sustained by the middle-class incomes of our working families ultimately would disappear as Vale removed more and more wealth from our communities along with the natural resources it extracts from our country.

This issue is at the heart of our struggle. As Mayor Rowswell says, for nearly a century Steelworkers have fought difficult battles “in the toughest of times” and “have stood up for their members and they built wealth.” And that wealth “has been returned to the community many times over.”

As Mayor Rowswell and all who follow this dispute know, Vale has attempted to justify its demands for major concessions from employees by citing concern over operational sustainability. This argument, however, is contrary to the facts – even the facts according to Vale’s official records.

Vale has reported that in the first two years following its takeover of Inco Ltd. it earned US$ 4.1 billion in profit from its Inco operations. These record profits were twice the earnings achieved by Inco over the entire previous 10 years. Inco had been profitable each year even while its Canadian workers and their communities shared somewhat in the prosperity.

Of course, those record profits came during an unprecedented mining boom and now times are tough and costs must be cut, Vale says. Again, Vale’s unfounded and unreasonable agenda is exposed by the facts.

According to Vale’s report released last week, in the third quarter this year - in the depths of a global recession - Vale’s after-tax profits reached nearly US$ 1.7 billion, a staggering 112 percent increase over the previous quarter. And Vale executives are predicting that things will get even better. Vale executives also acknowledged the company willingly lost $319 million in revenue - in only three months - as a result of the labour dispute it provoked in Canada. It also cost the company another $209 million in extra expenses to keep its Canadian operations “idle.”

At the same time, Vale executives decided to pay shareholders a total dividend of $2.75 billion this year. This is greater than Vale’s total personnel costs for its worldwide operations! Corporations that actually are struggling or concerned about the economic climate tend to significantly reduce or eliminate dividend payments.

So we certainly share Mayor Rowswell’s belief that “the right thing” to do now is to “get back to bargaining in good faith.”

As has been the case all along, the United Steelworkers is willing immediately to get back to the bargaining table in good faith. Vale is the one unwilling to sit down and resume good faith bargaining.

We agree wholeheartedly with Mayor Rowswell that it is time to do the right thing.

Sincerely,

John Fera, President of USW Local 6500

PS

If you would like more information on the strike, please visit here.

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