Quebec Premier Demands ABI Workers Make More Concessions

All Out to Defend the Rights and Dignity of ABI Workers!


"Alcoa impoverishes Quebec."

On April 1, Quebec Premier François Legault met separately with representatives of the locked-out ABI workers from Bécancour and Alcoa management, including the President of the Alcoa Business Unit from Pittsburgh. He tweeted after the meetings:

"Meetings with the President of the union at ABI in Bécancour and the President of Alcoa, the main owner of ABI. ABI has been in a labour dispute for 15 months. Management is offering an average salary of $92,000 per year to 900 employees. The union has to compromise."

Neither the union nor management have ever referred to wages as a point of contention at this time. The main issue is Alcoa's aim to wreck any negotiated norms regarding the pension and working conditions, especially the right of workers to retain unionized work rather than have most work contracted out under the neo-liberal line of flexibility and global competition. Alcoa wants to destroy any organized presence of workers in defence of their rights and of those replacing them upon retirement.

USW Local 9700 President Clément Masse pointed out that the union presented a clear case to the Premier, which made no mention of a wage dispute, nor did the Premier raise with them any issues of wages or compromising with the company. Nonetheless, Premier Legault issued his tweet and publicly declared to the press that the union was not being reasonable and that $92,000-per-year jobs could be lost.

It is unconscionable for the Premier to attempt to discredit the union's just positions by adopting the provocative methods and dictate for concessions of the foreign oligopoly. It creates an even greater power imbalance between the global oligarchs of Alcoa and the workers, and reinforces the company's dictate rather than creating the possibility of negotiations. It underscores the difficult situation in which ABI workers, the community, Quebec and, more broadly, workers across Canada and worldwide are facing.

The Premier's comments on wages counts on mobilizing workers who get minimum wage to shun the ABI union. This seeks to undermine the mass movement in support of the ABI workers and distort the issues at hand. Legault's nonsense over wages at ABI, which are basically the same wages in place at all other aluminum smelters in Quebec and Canada, is completely out of touch with the actual conflict and an indication of how his government, in the name of opening of Quebec to business, sides with the oligopolies against the workers.

Neo-liberalism demands all norms be destroyed in the name of flexibility and competition. Alcoa is intent on transforming the conditions under which the company hires, uses and deploys workers, without being limited by legally binding agreements that have been negotiated and approved by the workers. The back-to-work protocol Alcoa tried to dictate to the workers is an example, which they massively rejected in a general membership meeting on March 11. Not only did that protocol officially extend the period over which workers would return to work to 10 months, it allowed the company to suspend or even annul the protocol, if it so desired, based on criteria it could invoke at any time. In other words, no actual back-to-work protocol was presented but rather a company dictate. The conflict would have been declared finished, the workers theoretically called back to work, however in actual fact, they could very well have not been recalled at all, not to mention the fact that during all that time managers and subcontractors would continue working as if no unionized workforce even existed with legal norms and a collective agreement.

Alcoa has achieved such arrangements in the state of Western Australia where the Australian labour relations tribunal (the Fair Work Commission) ruled in favour of Alcoa's demand to terminate the collective agreement of 1,500 workers, under the hoax that it did not provide the company the neo-liberal "flexibility" it required to remain competitive on global markets. Those Alcoa workers have effectively had their union and collective agreement declared legally null and void and are now working under the minimum standards of Australia's labour laws without any organized protection that they control.[1] Alcoa's dominant position in the global sector allows it to shut down certain operations globally while maintaining supply from other facilities to enforce its dictate, a situation reinforced by neo-liberal governments that serve private interests.

Alcoa's lockout and refusal to enter into negotiations with the ABI workers and their union, and its demands for concessions in working conditions and the role of the union are also being justified in the name of flexibility and competition, which Premier Legault has now publicly endorsed.

Premier's Legault's stand must not pass. It puts the people in an untenable position without control of their resources and any say on the direction of the economy, which ultimately means all political affairs. It places government and the police powers of the state in the service of the global financial oligarchy in opposition to the rights and well-being of the people.

To go down the road of unrestricted power for the oligopolies and their economic and political dictatorship is not acceptable. Working people, youth and students across Quebec and Canada support the struggle of the ABI workers in defence of their rights and dignity. This struggle and its outcome have broad implications for all working people, organized and unorganized, whose future lies in upholding the dignity of labour and defending the rights of all.

Note

1. See "The 'Legal' Termination of Collective Agreements -- Australian Example," Pierre Chénier, Workers' Forum, February 28, 2019.

(Photos: Chantier politique, Syndicat des Métallos)


This article was published in

Number 12 - April 4, 2019

Article Link:
Quebec Premier Demands ABI Workers Make More Concessions: All Out to Defend the Rights and Dignity of ABI Workers!


    

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