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January 17, 2012 - No. 1 All for One and One for All in Alma and
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Without a limit on the
number of contract workers, even
with a company guarantee of 700 members of Local 9490 having employment
for the duration of the next contract, union members will be in a
weaker position to enforce the contract on a daily basis and in a worse
position to negotiate the next one. This
can be seen now as contract workers, against their own class and
national interests are being used as anti-worker mercenaries (scabs) to
allow the Rio Tinto oligarchs to continue a certain production level
during the lockout of union members. This is to smash any equilibrium
based on the recognition of workers'
rights. In doing so, the overall size of the claim of owners of capital
on aluminum production will become larger with an upward negative trend
for the near future if their monopoly right is not restricted now.
The union of the aluminum
smelter workers in Alma, Quebec and their president Marc Maltais have
been accused of living in the past and of fighting battles which
belonged to the 1970s and 1980s. This is because they are fighting for
the right of workers to secure employment and the monopolies say this
is not a right. Various actors in the political sphere, the business
world and the monopoly media in the region and across Quebec maintain
that the union is living in an era that no longer corresponds to the
changes in the world of today's globalized economy.
Is there anyone who knows
subcontracting better than us?
Not only are we subcontracted; we're sub-subcontracted and even
sub-sub-subcontracted.
Local 89 represents the
workers at the Tembec Spruce
Falls newsprint mill in Kapuskasing, Northern Ontario. There is also a
sawmill attached to the paper mill, which is an advantage because we
get our supply of chips from it. The total workforce, including
management staff, is around 600 people. In our work
to represent our members, and this is a feature of the whole sector, we
are facing profound uncertainty -- uncertainty about lumber and
newsprint prices, about market demand for these products, about the
industry's financial situation.  2009 rally in Smooth Rock Falls to protest the demolition of the shuttered Tembec mill that was to act as a site for a business co-operative. The project did not go through because of the lack of a wood allocation. |
When we sit at the table we have to be constantly aware
of the industry's situation, hoping it will turn the corner and lumber
and paper sales are going to increase. We are aware of the
circumstances in the industry, for example, Tembec's closure of its
mill at Smooth Rock Falls in 2006 and its recent closure
of the Tembec Pine Falls mill in Manitoba after the workers went on
strike. We have to take into account how Tembec dealt with the workers
there.
Another pressure on the sector is that the use of biomass for energy is directly competing with the lumber and paper industry. Companies are using biomass to produce electricity and there is no ceiling for electricity prices. Using forestry resources for lumber and paper becomes less attractive than using them to produce electricity.
Another factor at play here is the potential for growth
in the region's mining sector. We used to be a single industry region
but the growth in mining offers possibilities. Mining has now become
quite prevalent. There are some projects out there; there is activity
beyond the mill. There is a potash deposit, there
is the reopening of a gold mine, plus other mineral extraction projects
are being developed. There is some activity inside the mill also.
For a long time there was only downsizing, no training
and numbers were shrinking. There has been some hiring recently. This
is needed because the average age in the mill is about 50 and we need
replacements. We are not talking about expansion of the workforce. The
total numbers have fallen over the years
and technological changes have played a large role in that.
The population of Kapuskasing is about 5,000; when I was in high school it had 12,000 people. When I started at the mill there were 2,000 people in the bush and our local had over 1,000 members. There is still a forest group attached to the mill, working with high tech equipment. There are perhaps 100 workers in that group.
Uncertainty is all around us. A year ago, the Kidd Creek metallurgical complex near Timmins was closed by Xstrata even though it was state of the art. We had one of the most viable smelting processors there, but they closed it. The owner was allowed to transport the minerals to Quebec and process them there, saving millions of dollars due to lower electricity prices. This is wrong. The minerals extracted here should be processed in the region. The same applies to timber. If Tembec does not want to operate here they could in fact move the wood somewhere else. It is not happening here yet but it could.
El Salvador
Pacific Rim Mining Corporation's Extortion
Since December the World Bank court through the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), has undertaken closed-door deliberations to decide whether the Canadian Pacific Rim Mining Corporation is within its rights to sue the government of El Salvador. Pacific Rim Mining Corporation is accusing the government of El Salvador of selective discrimination against it by refusing to issue a mining license for the El Dorado mine, located some 65 kilometres from the capital San Salvador, in the rural region of Las Cabañas.
The Canadian mining company began the lawsuit against the government of El Salvador in April 2009, invoking Chapter 10 of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA).[1] More specifically, Pacific Rim maintains that by refusing the El Dorado mining license, the government of El Salvador violated Articles 10.3 (National Treatment), 10.4 (Most-Favored-Nation Treatment), 10.5 (Minimum Standard of Treatment), 10.7 (Expropriation) of the DR-CAFTA, as well as Article 23 of El Salvador's mining law. The mining company maintains that under these rules any mining company that has undertaken the exploration phase of a mining project is automatically allowed to continue with the operations phase due to the considerable sums of investments made. With this interpretation of the mining law in El Salvador, Pacific Rim is seeking $77 million and $23 million in expected profit losses and expenses.
Canada is not part of the DR-CAFTA, and, in order to
bring this process to arbitration, Pacific Rim used subterfuge and
opened a subsidiary in Reno, Nevada in the United Sates, as Pacific Rim
Cayman. This subsidiary was opened in 2007, two years before filing the
lawsuit in arbitration court. This would seem to indicate premeditation
-- that Pacific Rim never intended to comply with the environmental and
mining laws of El Salvador and organized to direct the dispute to the
international body of the DR-CAFTA.
Pacific Rim began its exploration operations at the El
Dorado site in 2002 following a six-year plan leading to a gold and
silver extraction
phase. Very quickly the local population and several
civil rights and environmental organizations expressed their concerns
and opposition to the project's continuation
under the negative environmental practices used by the mining company
and the health consequences for the local population. The fact is that
Cabañas is located on the Lempa river, a major river for El
Salvador and a primary water source. Pacific Rim wants to use large
quantities of water and cyanide for its mineral
extraction, which will flow into the river and contaminate the water
source for hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans.
This fact is what led
to the government of El Salvador's refusal to renew the company's
license in 2004 and again in 2006. Finally, faced with mounting
pressure from the Front Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front
(FMLN), the communities in the
Cabañas region, international environmental lawyers and the
Catholic Church, the government of El Salvador under President Elias
Antonio Saca
announced in March 2008 that it wanted to see new studies on the
environmental impacts of the mining project before authorizing
any kind of mining license.
This decision put an end to the right-wing
project to reformulate El Salvador's mining law so as to continue
exploitation of the El Dorado mine, as well as 23 other similar mining
projects.
Speaking to the government's decision, the Environment
Minister at the time, Carlos Guerrero
said, "Neighbouring countries have serious problems managing the metal
mining industry and I think that in light of these problems we should
be cautious." (Guerrero was referring to the situations in Honduras and
Guatemala, where mining activities have considerably affected the
environment and the health of the
residents living close to the mines.) Then in 2009, taking a
firm position against the continuation of mining projects like the El
Dorado mine, President Saca said, "If along the way we find out that
something could harm the people's health, we must then go in favour of
Salvadoran's health."
In March of that
year, the FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes was elected president and
pursued the same policies as his predecessor on mining and refused
Pacific Rim's licenses, thereby blocking the company from beginning
gold and silver extraction from the El Dorado mine. The following
month Pacific Rim, refusing to accept
the decision of the sovereign government of El Salvador over its
natural resources and environment, decided to depose the lawsuit
against the government before the arbitration court of the ICSID.
The
problem with Pacific Rim's use of the ICSID tribunal of the World bank,
under DR-CAFTA, to resolve its dispute
with the Salvadoran government is the existence of this free trade
agreement, which contains no clause with regard to establishing a
labour standard or environmental protection, and in particular its
Chapter 10. This chapter, taken directly from the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA), includes provisions
granting broad rights to foreign investors, including the right to sue
governments. Under the pretext of facilitating foreign investment, it
contains clauses that permit multinational corporations to avoid
direct negotiations with governments and instead
use international arbitration courts,
as is the case with Pacific Rim and its case against the government of
El Salvador. The fact that Pacific Rim can use the World Bank
arbitration court to avoid submitting to Salvadoran laws is a violation
of the fundamental democratic laws of the Salvadoran people to exercise
their sovereignty over their natural resources
and its environment.
Meanwhile if the court sides with Pacific Rim the
consequences would be disastrous not only for the government of El
Salvador that would have to pay millions of dollars to Pacific Rim, but
equally for all Central-American governments as it would set a
precedent for the use of Chapter 10 of
the DR-CAFTA and would incite other foreign monopolies to follow
Pacific Rim's example in their quest to plunder the wealth of the
people.
There are currently 32 cases awaiting trial before the
World
Bank court concerning petroleum, gas and mineral extraction, while ten
years ago
there were a mere three. Sixty-six percent of
these cases concern lawsuits against Latin American governments. This
shows how agreements such as the DR-CAFTA are in fact tools for
domination to smash the sovereignty of the people and force their
governments to submit to imperialist monopoly dictate. It also shows
the necessity to dismantle these agreements
and prevent new ones from being created, because the sovereign rights
of the people are thereby violated and humiliated. It is thanks to
these
free-trade agreements that Canadian and other foreign mining companies
plunder the
natural wealth of Latin America, destroying the environment
with impunity, attacking the health of millions
of people. They use violence, assassinations and other forms of
intimidation against all
those who oppose their plundering while governments in their home
countries turn a blind eye. These attacks on the sovereign rights of
the Latin
American peoples must stop; all free-trade agreements must be
abrogated. The Salvadoran people have the right to exercise
sovereignty
over their natural resources and environment.
When U.S. President Obama
visited San Salvador last March, organizations
opposed to the dangers of mining held demonstrations demanding the
elimination of the investor protection clause in the DR-CAFTA. They
also demanded that Obama deny
Pacific Rim's arbitration request and follow through on his 2008
presidential campaign promise that, "With regard to the provisions
of various free-trade agreements that give foreign investors the right
to sue governments directly before foreign courts, I'll insure that the
rights of foreign investors are strictly limited and that they'll be
fully subject to any law or regulation written that serves to protect
public security or promote public interest."
Clearly, what Obama understands by the concepts public security and public interest is not the same as what the people of El Salvador and their government understand those concepts to mean. Of course, the people of El Salvador should get to exercise their sovereignty because it is their land, their resources, their human rights. Might does not make right. But then the monopolies and the U.S. and American states and their armed forces and courts and corruption say it does. It must not pass!
Note
1. The Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) was signed into law by then U.S. President George W. Bush August 2, 2005. Its content is largely inspired by the North American Free Trade Agreement. El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, the United States, Guatemala, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic are the member nations of the treaty.
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