Discussion of the Alcoa/Rio Tinto-Government Dictated Contract and Back-to-Work Protocol at ABI

- Interview, Alexandre Fréchette, President, Alma Aluminum Workers' Union,
United Steelworkers Local 9490 -

Mass rally for Alma aluminum workers, March 31, 2012.

In this interview, President Fréchette points out that the Quebec Labour Minister Jean Boulet before entering government worked as a lawyer for Heenan Blaikie and had various contracts to represent ABI. "To see how he acts, how he systematically favours the employer and puts pressure on the workers, I think we can ask very serious questions and certainly at least say that this minister is not neutral in the conflict," President Fréchette says.

Workers' Forum: In his April 17 proposal for a settlement of the ABI conflict, Quebec Labour Minister Jean Boulet said that he took into account the Rio Tinto lockout of 2012 in Alma. He suggested he was in fact faithful to what happened in Alma to achieve a similar result for the current lockout at ABI. Can you tell us more about the actual situation as it unfolded after the lockout at Alma?

Alexandre Fréchette: Regarding the duration of the return to work period that would follow after the lockout at ABI, it is one of two things: either the minister is incompetent, or he is a liar. To try to justify his settlement proposal at ABI, the Minister says that in Alma we managed, with great difficulty, to get people back to work in six months. Hence, he proposes the ABI back-to-work protocol should provide that workers return to work within six months of the end of the lockout.

In fact, it was written in black and white in our (2012) collective agreement that the employer agreed to call back all those who were full-time employees as of December 31, 2011, no later than 90 days after restarting the very first tank. This was actually clause 13 of our collective agreement. There was even an appendix to this, a table, with the detailed restart schedule, week by week, up to 14 weeks. So within 90 days, at the most, everyone is back to work.

As I said, this agreement was actually part of our (2012) collective agreement, and is even in our 2015 collective agreement. And in fact, in Alma, the return to work was completed in 90 days. What was a little difficult in our return to work was not the time it took, but the order of recall, seniority. There were recall errors, which were actually fully compensated by the company. As for the time frame, it was fully respected.

As I said, the Minister is either an incompetent, who says things he is not familiar with, or he is well aware of what he says, knows it is a lie, and is using it against the workers.

WF: The minister also said that he has "modernized" the outsourcing clause of ABI in his settlement proposal. What has he actually done?

AF: It is very simple. In ABI's collective agreement, Alcoa has the right to subcontract work within a list of activities where subcontracting is permitted. By "modernizing" it, the minister has simply removed the list so that Alcoa can outsource jobs anywhere in the plant.

What he did was eliminate the list of jobs that can be subcontracted. This list is a constraint on the company. If I draw a parallel with Alma, in order to have a list of jobs for which outsourcing is allowed, we had to go through six months of lockout. Basically, I would say that 90 per cent of our fight was to have that list. The issue was to limit the management rights of the employer, to have a clause that limits both the amount of outsourcing and the places where it can apply.

Our outsourcing clause essentially says that management has the right to take 15 per cent of the hours worked per operation and use them in subcontracting and they have to apply (those hours) to a list of jobs that has been negotiated. It is important because we chose jobs where the harm was less; jobs in which the knowledge of the production process is not necessary; jobs, for example in material handling and related things. This is a very serious concession that the minister is introducing at ABI, and it is certain in our opinion that this is something that must be denounced loud and clear.

Just for that, just for this outsourcing clause, in my opinion this settlement proposal is worse than the offer that the company made in March, an offer that workers massively rejected. So when the minister is talking about this as if it is something incidental in this conflict, we tell him that we fought six months to get that list, and he is just taking this away in his settlement proposal. So who is he working for?

In our view, these two elements are so blatant that it is either incompetence or lies; I am not able to prove the intention with certainty. Now, if I look at the Minister's history, Mr. Boulet has already represented ABI and its contracts in the past. He dealt with contracts for ABI as a lawyer while working for Heenan Blaikie. To see how he acts, how he systematically favours the employer and puts pressure on the workers, I think we can ask very serious questions and certainly at least say that this minister is not neutral in the conflict.

(Translated from the original French by Workers' Forum. Photos: TML, Metallos)

This article was published in

Number 18 - May 16, 2019

Article Link:
Discussion of the Alcoa/Rio Tinto-Government Dictated Contract and Back-to-Work Protocol at ABI >

    

Website:  www.cpcml.ca   Email:  editor@cpcml.ca