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January 20, 2012 - No. 4 All Out for the London Day of Action Canadian Workers Organized and in Motion
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All Out for the London Day of Action
• Canadian Workers Organized and in Motion to
Defend the Rights of All
Rio Tinto Workers Speak Out
• Phony Lockout Denounced
Crisis in Forestry Exacerbated by Anti-Worker Measures
• Owners Declare Permanent Closure of White
Birch Paper Mill in Quebec City
• Catalyst Paper's Refinancing Deal and
Anti-Worker Blackmail
All Out for the London Day of Action
Canadian Workers Organized and in Motion to
Defend the Rights of All
EMD workers on the picket line, January 19, 2012.
An attack on EMD workers is an attack on all!
The January 21 London Day of Action is a step on the road to defeat the arrogance of Caterpillar executives and all those who raise their hand against the dignity of Canadians. Certain executives think the Canadian economy is theirs to manipulate and that Canadian workers are mere pawns to be crushed or tossed aside at their will. They must be shown forcefully that Canada's economy belongs to those who work!
The corrupt road of Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD)
since
2005 reveals to the Canadian working class that it must break new
ground in resistance and organizing for a new direction for the
economy. Workers depend for their very lives on a Canadian standard of
living and security of employment. In return, they
hand over their capacity to work. They expect that executives and
governments will respect their commitment to work and will defend their
employment, standard of living, stability and security at work and in
life generally. However, they are learning through hard lessons that
security these days comes from conscious
organizing and resistance to defend the rights of all.
Workers can never accept that the workplaces in which they produce and distribute the wealth of the nation and provide the services society requires, be used as means to enrich a handful of parasites without concern for the social and natural consequences. But this is happening at EMD and the Canadian working class does not agree and will never agree with such a state of affairs. Workers hold both Caterpillar executives and governments to account to behave honourably and treat workers with respect. That is not the case at EMD and other workplaces and Canadian workers together with their allies will fight to regain stability and dignity and not have this nonsense of slashed wages, concessions and threats of closure and layoffs constantly thrown at them as if they are nothing.
In 2005, GM sold EMD to U.S. parasites Greenbriar Equity Group and Berkshire Partners who in turn flipped the company to Caterpillar for a reported big score in 2010. The U.S. global monopoly Caterpillar has now locked out 465 workers and threatened to move the plant to Indiana if they do not accept to cut their wages in half and submit to other ridiculous concessions.
Why have our governments allowed important parts of the economy, on which Canadians all depend, to sink to the lower depth where such threats are even uttered let alone acted upon through a brutal lockout? That the situation has degenerated this far demonstrates to all Canadians that governments must be held to account for this state of affairs, which is unacceptable. No people in the modern world can accept to be treated with such contempt. No government worthy of the name can stand by and watch its people attacked in this manner. Employers acting in this way are introducing disequilibrium into the lives of Canadians and their economy and they do not accept this. Canadians want equilibrium, in which they can produce the wealth we all depend on, provide the services we require and raise the next generation of Canadians in peace and harmony at a Canadian standard of living.
To re-establish equilibrium
and some sanity in relations
between employers and employees, the working class has taken up its
social responsibilities and is organizing itself and resisting the
attacks such as with this London Day of Action. A new equilibrium
cannot be established without challenging those forces
that have turned workers lives upside down and those governments that
are conciliating with the attacks. The London Day of Action expresses
the determination of the working class to re-establish equilibrium in
labour relations and to continue resisting until that task is done.
Canadians cannot live under the constant threats of insecurity and loss of income. Canadians refuse to live this way and will organize with fellow workers in every city and town in the country into a powerful Worker's Opposition that can effectively challenge this disequilibrium in our lives and right the ship!
The London day of Action is one step on this path forward to break new ground in Canada to defeat these scoundrels who call themselves "investors" or "neoliberals." To win this battle, workers need to take up the defence of the rights of all with renewed enthusiasm, determination and social consciousness. Workers gathered in London and those who could not make the journey declare their unity and determination to defeat the disequilibrium that is turning lives upside down.
 Caterpillar fenced off the plant while negotiation talks were still ongoing. |
Caterpillar executives must be held to account for their criminal conspiracy to ruin Canada's economy and steal the people's assets. These criminals cannot be allowed to get away with it. Neither can any other employer who thinks of abusing the dignity of the working class and equilibrium such as those in Toronto City Hall, the York Region or the Rio Tinto executives in the Saguenay who have locked out Alma aluminum workers.
The London Day of Action serves notice to the global monopolies, the neoliberals in government or any others who think they can trample on the working class with impunity that the winds of change are blowing through Canada and the working class has had enough of this nonsense. This is our economy and we vow to defend it with all possible means, which includes holding governments to account.
Down with the criminal conspiracy of the U.S. global monopoly Caterpillar!
End the lockout now on terms acceptable to the dignity and well-being of EMD workers!
Governments, do your duty! Defend the Canadian people against these global thugs!
An attack on one is an attack on all!
An attack on one section of the working class is an attack on all!
All for one and one for all!
Let us together meet at our workplaces and neighbourhoods to discuss the necessity of organizing a powerful Workers' Opposition that defends the rights of all in a conscious manner with actions with analysis. Contact the Workers' Centre of CPC(M-L) with your questions, concerns or wish to organize: workerscentre@cpcml.ca.
United, determined, organized and holding high its
social consciousness, the working class can defeat these fascist
attacks on its rights and prepare conditions for a pro-social
alternative!
On the Picket Line
Workers are joined by family, friends, supporters and retirees, January, 18, 2012.
January 7 Solidarity BBQ
(Photos: OFL, Mary G. Kosta, CAW)
Rio Tinto Workers Speak Out
Phony Lockout Denounced
TML Daily is reprinting below a letter to the editor of the Bulletin Régional from a locked out Rio Tinto worker in Alma, Quebec.
***
An unavoidable conflict? I don't believe it. The lockout has little connection with negotiations. For Rio Tinto Alcan (RTA) this is nothing but a business opportunity. Production is down, but that's a negligible consequence. Presently RTA is making incredible profits by selling electricity. They dump it at night in the U.S. The production drop in Alma, Shawinigan and Alcoa lowers international inventory and raises the cost per ton. Already last week the cost went up by $100.
RTA has several plants in Quebec. We will serve as the
example for future negotiations. They will do everything to make their
decision to stop production profitable.
This is my seventh contract with Alcan over 25 years. During all these years this is the first time I've seen preparation like this by the company. For a little over a year they've been threatening to lock us out. They would say on the shop floor "that they would subcontract all services. That all the workers who retire would be replaced by subcontractors." RTA has prepared the conditions to stop production. They knew that by spreading such threats on the shop floor their offer would be refused.
I took them so seriously that I sold my big house in Jonquière to buy a little bungalow near Alma in April. I paid all my debts. I've been preparing for this conflict for a year now. I asked my spouse to find work; she has been a housewife for nearly 30 years. For those who question this decision, why else would I accept commuting for 15 years without complaining and suddenly decide to change my life when I am near retirement?
 Demonstration by Alma workers, November 22, 2010, against Rio Tinto Alcan's threats of subcontracting. |
The only player who can end this lockout in disguise is RTA. We gave a nearly 90 per cent strike vote with the aim of negotiating with equal strength.
Since it started I've said, "There's no reason for this lockout." The company has no valid excuse to kick us out. No production drop, no serious breakages, no aggression towards the staff. Despite this RTA is still trying to blame the union.
Don't forget that it was RTA that brutally kicked us out the night of December 30. If on the 31st the workers hadn't returned to work to do their "JOBS," RTA would have been happy to say we were on strike because we weren't at work at the end of our contract.
Presently we believe we still have sufficient strength to negotiate. But in the context of globalization where the company's returns are proportional to the inordinate appetite of the shareholders, the disappearance of union values means the end of acceptable working conditions for all. We, the 780 workers of the Alma plant, are pretty small compared to the RTA machine. Hence the importance to rally all of Quebec and elsewhere -- with all those who believe in the possibility of keeping good working conditions for the future for our children and generations to come.
Francis Ouellet
Alma
(Letter to the Editor, Le Bulletin Régional, January 18, 2012. Translated from original French by TML Daily.)
Crisis in Forestry Exacerbated by Anti-Worker Measures
Owners Declare Permanent Closure of White Birch Paper Mill in Quebec City
Protest by workers and supporters demands reopening of White Birch's Quebec City paper mill, January 3, 2012.
On January 12, the owners of paper monopoly White Birch announced that the Quebec City paper mill, closed since December 9 on a so-called temporary basis, would not reopen. Workers are demanding that the Quebec government and the Mayor of Quebec City intervene to oppose the closure.
The announcement of the permanent closure came late in the evening on January 12, 24 hours after the "final offer" of the owners was rejected by 91 per cent of the workers present at the union meeting. Workers report that the offer included a wage reduction of 21 per cent and cutbacks to the pension plan according to which workers over the age of 55 would see a 45 per cent decrease in their pension and workers under 55 would lose 65 per cent.
The White Birch owners issued a statement to try to justify the closure that says in part:
"In the last year, we have made several offers and good faith attempts to negotiate a viable solution that have been hastily rejected by the [Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP)] and its leaders. With the rejection of our final offer by the union, we had no other option than to close the mill permanently. Without significant reductions in salaries, pension benefits and other costs, Stadacona simply cannot survive."
The several so-called good faith attempts by White Birch to negotiate with the workers have been the repeated attempts of the paper monopoly, since filing for bankruptcy protection at the beginning of 2010, to get the workers to agree to the termination of their pension plans and to other untenable concessions.
Workers responded to the announcement by holding a demonstration in front of the plant on January 13 in which they expressed their firm opposition to this new coup to extort concessions from them and especially their determination to prevent the theft of their pensions.
Quebec Minister of Natural Resources and Wildlife Clement Gignac told the media that he was upset by the announced permanent closure and would examine his options to keep it open. He said he is considering offering White Birch the possibility to stretch out its payments to cover the pension plan's deficit over 15 years instead of five as the Quebec government offered AbitibiBowater (now Resolute Forest Products) when it was under bankruptcy protection. CEP is asking the government to intervene to bring the two parties back to the bargaining table so that White Birch considers the union's counter offer. The Mayor of Quebec City Régis Labeaume has also said he is displeased at the announcement of the permanent closure and called it disrespectful and arrogant.
The workers' fight against anti-worker restructuring under bankruptcy protection has been going on for two years now. In February 2010, White Birch, one of the leading newsprint producers in North America, filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. and Canada. Besides the Quebec City mill, White Birch maintains two other mills in Quebec -- in Rivière-du-Loup and Masson -- and runs the Bear Island facility in Ashland, Virginia. As part of the restructuring under bankruptcy protection, a consortium was formed by White Birch itself and Black Diamond Capital Management to buy the three Quebec mills. The Quebec court made the transaction conditional on the consortium reaching tentative agreements with the unions representing the workers at the three mills.
No agreement has been reached because the consortium insists that the workers must agree to the termination of their pension funds. The workers have consistently rejected this demand. On December 22 the potential buyers presented an offer to the workers in Rivière-du-Loup and Masson -- that was overwhelmingly rejected by the workers. This offer was made to each union separately although up to that time the talks between the consortium and the three unions, all CEP locals, were held at a common table.
The workers are also denouncing White Birch for paying close to $35 million to owner Peter Brant as "service fees" over the last two years while the workers have been going through all these upheavals in their lives.
Workers are saying that this fight is not over and that White Birch and the potential buyers must not be allowed to legally steal their pensions and cause all this turmoil in the lives of the workers and communities in which they operate.
Catalyst Paper's Refinancing Deal and
Anti-Worker
Blackmail
On January 15, BC-based
pulp and paper monopoly Catalyst
Paper announced an agreement with its creditors for a recapitalization
plan that trims its debt by U.S.$315.4 million, gives bondholders 99.5
per cent of the company's shares and replaces the entire board of
directors with a new board. The agreement
comes a few weeks after Catalyst deferred a U.S.$21-million interest
payment on its senior secured 2016 notes.
The secured bondholders have agreed to swap U.S.$390.4 million in notes for $325 million new notes and 80 per cent of the company's new shares. The unsecured bondholders are to swap their U.S.$250 million in notes for 15 per cent of the new shares plus an additional 4.5 per cent if they agree to the deal before the earliest consent date, January 27. Once the agreement is in place, bondholders will control 99.5 per cent of the company's stock. Existing shareholders will have the remaining half per cent.
The company has to meet two conditions by January 31 for the agreement to go through: the approval of two-thirds of the secured and unsecured bondholders and a new labour contract at its three coastal pulp and paper mills in BC. Catalyst is pressuring the workers to go for early bargaining and to sign before the contracts expire on April 30 saying that otherwise the deal with the bondholders is off and Catalyst will file for bankruptcy protection. So far the workers at the Port Alberni and Powell River mills have reached agreements but the workers at the Crofton mill have not. At the beginning of the year they rejected a tentative agreement and another vote has been called by the union leadership. Catalyst is demanding concessions in wages and working conditions.
The whole restructuring is to be completed by March 31. If the deal fails, Catalyst says it has a plan to implement it by seeking creditor protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act.
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Email: editor@cpcml.ca