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March 16, 2017
Build the Independent Politics of the
Working Class
to Defend Its Rights
Stelco President's Fantasy Letter
on
Bedrock Proposal
- Rolf Gerstenberger -
PDF
Build
the
Independent
Politics
of
the
Working
Class to Defend Its Rights
• Stelco President's Fantasy Letter on Bedrock
Proposal - Rolf Gerstenberger
• Steelworker Killed at U.S. Steel's Granite
City Mill - K.C. Adams
Strike at CEZinc
Refinery
• Workers Step Up Actions to Defend Their Rights
- Pierre Chénier
Build the Independent Politics of the
Working Class to Defend Its Rights
Stelco President's Fantasy Letter
on Bedrock Proposal
- Rolf Gerstenberger -
Get real Mr. McQuade. The Bedrock
deal is an anti-deal. No Means No!
Michael McQuade, President and General Manager of
Stelco sent a letter to all employees on March 10. Over 2,200
workers produce steel at Stelco mills in Hamilton and Nanticoke. The
value they produce sustains themselves and the pensions and benefits
of 20,000 retirees, and provides added-value claimed by owners and
governments.
McQuade's letter speaks of optimism that successful
restructuring to exit the police powers of the Companies' Creditors
Arrangement Act (CCAA) is within reach but warns this is only
possible if employees and other stakeholders agree to all the demands
of the Bedrock oligarchs poised to seize control. McQuade's letter
ignores the
very real challenges of building a modern Canadian steel sector and
solving all the economic problems associated with such a task.
Unfortunately, Mr. McQuade has revealed himself as a
servile U.S. minion. For him an
independent Canadian economy and steel sector do not and should not
exist. He says a Bedrock controlled Stelco will be a "participant in
the North American steel industry" not an indispensable productive
steel facility within a vibrant, stable, diverse
and independent Canadian economy that can stand on its own without
being beholden to U.S. masters and their recurring crises and problems.
McQuade reduces everything to agreeing with the demands
of the Bedrock oligarchs as if that will solve all issues. Give up your
pensions, benefits and security of employment for empty promises from
those who in the past have broken every promise. Leave everything up to
those in control who will ensure success and security for all, he
pleads, even though they are the same ilk who have brought Stelco to
its knees over and over again and never solved a single real economic
problem.
All the problems such as wildly fluctuating steel
market prices and matching Canadian production with apparent demand
remain. The Bedrock plan does not deal with a single problem with the
economy itself. It passes ownership of Stelco from one hand of the
financial oligarchy to another hand and in the process shifts the
burden of
outstanding issues onto active and retired workers and the steel
communities.
The Bedrock ownership gang is pushing as hard as
possible to remove itself from any social responsibility to workers,
retirees, the economy and community. The pension and retiree benefits
(OPEBs) are severed from production of new value on which they depend
for survival. Pensions and OPEBs are banished into a netherworld of
polluted
land. Gone is any social responsibility for historical pollution, as
environmental remediation of the land is severed from production of new
value. Missing are any promises of certain production and employment
levels. The Bedrock oligarchs want a new collective agreement with
union steelworkers in place before exiting from under the police
powers of the CCAA. One wonders if they are planning a MANA-style
outrage, where across the board concessions are demanded and if workers
do not cave, police powers are unleashed with CCAA court orders to obey
or else.
The demand for concessions,
use of the CCAA, the breaking of agreements and wrecking of perfectly
good productive forces do not solve any economic problems. These
tactics of the oligarchs have the reverse effect; they cause misery for
Canadians and guarantee that serious problems in the sector will soon
erupt again. Stelco has been in
CCAA bankruptcy protection two times in recent years while Algoma Steel
in Sault Ste. Marie is suffering its fourth time! The Bedrock plan
effectively blocks any serious discussion of alternatives and deprives
Canadians from finding a new independent pro-social direction for the
steel sector and the economy.
McQuade implies that without agreement with the Bedrock
deal the end result will be worse. Why the threats? The Bedrock
oligarchs do not seek agreement with anything positive; they merely
want a free hand to do whatever serves their narrow private interests.
Besides, what does agreement mean in today's CCAA world of police
powers
and casually broken legal agreements where working people are deprived
of any control over what affects their lives?
U.S. Steel did not hesitate to break its federal
agreement under the Investment Canada Act for certain
production and employment levels, eventually shifting considerable
Stelco production to its U.S. plants. Its executives solemnly swore in
public to make the Stelco pension plans solvent by the end
of 2015. They left them in
even worse fiscal shape than before their takeover, and in addition,
unilaterally cancelled pension benefit indexation and refused to enroll
new hires in the defined-benefit pension plans. During its reign, U.S.
Steel unleashed recurring lockouts to break the collective agreements
with the local unions and attack steelworkers' dignity. Yet the Bedrock
deal rewards U.S. Steel with a $126 million payoff. Shameful!
Also, U.S. Steel sold off a
Stelco Hamilton mill to a German gang of oligarchs called MANA, which
after making grandiose promises itself, almost immediately went on a
destructive rampage that continues to this day. MANA locked out Stelco
workers demanding ridiculous reductions in wages and benefits and
working conditions. It scoured
the city for mercenary scabs even going into technical colleges to
bribe students to disgrace themselves as traitors to the working class
by taking the jobs of veteran Stelco workers.
How can workers trust anyone in authority these days?
They all break their word. Trudeau has casually backed out of promised
electoral reform. If the oligarchs want to smash an agreement they just
do it, as U.S. Steel did repeatedly, or they hide behind the police
powers of the CCAA and break agreements with court orders. Workers face
a
world of rule by oligarchs without a government of laws. Without a
government of laws, workers cannot hold the oligarchs to account let
alone hold the rulers in political power to account. Workers at Stelco,
up north at Essar Steel Algoma and across the country are facing this
problem of an economy and country out of their control, of not being
able to hold the oligarchs and political elite to account. Workers are
determined to solve this problem one way or another.
So what is this agreement you want Mr. McQuade? You now
even refuse to pay the legal OPEBs that belong to Stelco retirees by
right. You hide under the phoney excuse of a liquidity crisis when the
company has consistently carried almost $200 million in liquid
cash from the constant new value steelworkers are producing.
What are the assurances that
any agreement will be honoured when honour amongst oligarchs appears to
be no honour at all? The Bedrock deal is not a deal. It is an
anti-deal. The oligarchs want out of all the legal arrangements that
Stelco has made in the past regarding workers, retirees, the
environment, the municipalities and others. These
oligarchs from the U.S. see a chance for a big score and nothing less
will satisfy them, and certainly nothing more will interest them such
as meeting existing social responsibilities. If they can seize Stelco's
productive forces without any of the legacy deals from the past, they
are laughing all the way to the bank whether they continue producing,
flip the company or sell it off piecemeal. As they march to their
bloated vaults they are laughing at Canadians. They assume we are, in
McQuade's own words, mere "participants in a North American steel
industry" serving Fortress North America that oligarchs dominate and
where Canadian working people have no say or control.
You are living in a fantasy world, Mr. McQuade. Stelco
workers, retirees and other members of the steel communities live in a
very real world where they need a say and control over their lives. In
our world, No Means No! No! to attacks on steelworkers, the steel
communities and Canadian economy. Canadians need a Canadian steel
sector
where they can solve its problems and contribute to building a stable
economy that can guarantee the right of all to Canadian standard
livelihoods while working and in retirement.
The Bedrock Deal Is an Anti-deal. No
Means No!
Steelworker Killed at U.S. Steel's Granite City Mill
- K.C. Adams -
Steelworker Timothy Dagon died following an incident on
March 5, at the U.S. Steel plant in Granite City,
Illinois. Timothy was working in the rail yard area of Granite City
Works when he was suddenly killed during his shift. Workers' Forum
expresses its sincere condolences to steelworker Dagon's workmates,
friends and family including two children and grandchild. The workplace
death of a worker is extremely distressing for the working class and a
stark reminder of the necessity to intensify the collective efforts to
defend workers' health and safety and other rights.
The company and U.S. state authorities have not
released any details regarding Timothy's unfortunate death at the young
age of 42. Lack of timely information is commonplace with serious
incidents at U.S. Steel plants. Following the death of U.S. Steel
steelworker Jonathan Arrizola in October 2016, the cause of his
death and
circumstances were only reported January 17, 2017, over three
months after the accident. Arrizola was an electrician at U.S. Steel's
Gary Works. He was electrocuted while performing maintenance on a crane
at the mill, one and a half months after U.S. Steel laid off almost all
maintenance staff, replacing them with contract workers
and forcing non-maintenance staff to take on much of the work left
behind. Shortly after his death, Arrizola's wife told the media of her
husband's worries that Gary Works had become an extremely dangerous
place.
Concessions are Not Solutions;
Real Economic Problems Require Real Solutions
Layoffs, contracting out, demanding concessions from
workers and retirees, and wrecking production are part of U.S. Steel's
Carnegie Way war against steelworkers and salaried employees. Instead
of honouring workers as the producers of the value the economy and
society require for their existence, the Carnegie Way abuses them as a
cost
of production.
 Steel executives suffer
from the imperialist delusion that solutions to real problems in the
steel sector and interrelated economy can be found in forcing
concessions from workers and periodically wrecking the forces of
production. Their
singular obsession with profits for the oligarchs leads them not to
care that their anti-social actions cause harsh
consequences for working people and damage the broad economy.
Instead of dealing head on with economic problems
through real solutions, it is legal for the oligarchs to steal what
belongs to workers by right such as pensions, benefits and stable
livelihoods. It is legal for them to conspire to reduce health and
safety measures at workplaces under the anti-human outlook that such
regulations reduce profits and the incentive of oligarchs to invest.
Real problems require real solutions such as how to
control the market price of steel so that it matches the price of
production; planning production in the steel sector and in its
relations with other sectors to ensure production conforms to apparent
demand and that other sectors of the economy are not damaged; and,
building a stable all-sided
interrelated regional and national economy with all the necessary
manufacturing sectors, social programs and public services to guarantee
the well-being of the people. To manage the socialized economy so that
it develops and serves the people requires real pro-social solutions
and development of the science of economic planning. Real problems are
not solved with attacks on the actual producers of value, the working
class, or blaming competing oligarchs at home and abroad who are
engaged in similar anti-social empire-building.
The Granite City plant where Timothy Dagon died was
shut down in December 2015, with the layoff of 1,500
steelworkers. This past month U.S. Steel partially reopened the plant
calling 200 steelworkers back to operate the hot-strip mill.
According to a local USW union official, to open the mill with such a
bare-bones
staff was asking for trouble and creating dangerous conditions for
workers.
A local newspaper, the Belleville News Democrat,
writes,
"The
death
[of
Timothy
Dagon]
is at least the third since U.S.
Steel purchased Granite City Steel from National Steel out of
bankruptcy in 2003. The first took place Feb. 3, 2005
when David M. Prengel, 46, was killed after being hit by a
slow-moving
train in the rail yard. The other was on Oct. 30, 2011 when
Dennis C. Courtaway, 56, of Caseyville, was found at the top of a
blast furnace."
State-Organized Attacks on Workers' Rights
U.S. Steel's Carnegie Way war against steelworkers is
an aspect of U.S. state-organized official policy. The Trump
administration has made this perfectly clear. Introducing one of his
executive orders in January, Trump denounced regulations dealing with
such issues as health and safety at workplaces calling them "job
killing." He vowed to
"dramatically reduce federal regulations" on businesses and starve any
remaining regulations of federal funds and personnel so they could not
be enforced. These regulations include those of the U.S. Department of
Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The Trump
declaration clearly says that rich oligarchs like himself will only
invest the social wealth they control if workers give up their rights
to pensions, benefits, standard wages, stable livelihoods and a safe
working environment.
 The words and actions of
the ruling imperialist elite in control of U.S. Steel and the U.S.,
Mexican and Canadian states reveal a depraved outlook of those who are
not fit to control the economy and govern society. To lay off 1,500
steelworkers without providing them alternate employment or a
livelihood should be declared illegal and a criminal enterprise. Not to
consider safe working conditions for industrial and other workers a
necessity is a criminal enterprise. To demand concessions from active
and retired workers as a precondition for oligarchs to invest such as
what is happening at Stelco and Algoma Steel in Ontario should be
declared illegal and a criminal enterprise.
The human-devouring financial oligarchy is running
amuck in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Using the police powers of the Companies'
Creditors
Arrangement
Act
(CCAA) in Canada, the ruling
imperialist elite are attacking active and retired steelworkers and
salaried employees at Stelco and Algoma Steel. The same names of
so-called investment funds keep appearing as villains in all these
cases of abuse of the workers and the socialized economy: at Essar
Steel Algoma are found Deutsche Bank, Golden Tree and Bain Capital, at
U.S. Steel in the U.S. and its subsidiary in Canada are found Vanguard
Fund, Blackrock Group, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Bedrock
Industries, Lindsay Goldberg, Alan Kestenbaum (Dow Corning Metais do
Para Ltda -- Brazil, Neuro-Hitech Inc -- healthcare and
pharmaceuticals) etc.
These oligarchs organized into oligopolies within
sectors from top to bottom and across many industries have a
single-minded aim to expand their private wealth and empires by
squeezing as much added-value as they can from workers and the economy.
They are not concerned with the health and safety and well-being of the
working class
and the proper functioning of the interrelated economy to avoid
recurring crises; such a pro-social concern contradicts their narrow
private anti-social aim.
Independent Politics of the Working Class to Defend Its
Rights
and Build a Pro-Social Nation
Organizing itself as a powerful collective with its own
independent politics and institutions, the working class of the U.S.,
Mexico and Canada upholds a modern pro-human outlook to defend the
rights of all and ensure the socialized economy functions in the
interests of the people without crises. The working class has its own
independent
politics and nation-building project to constitute itself as the
nation, vest sovereignty in the people through democratic empowerment,
form an anti-war government and open society's path to progress.
 The working class of the
U.S., Mexico and Canada face a ruling imperialist elite and oligarchs
who have no solutions to the problems in the socialized economy, which
is plainly evident in the recurring crises and ongoing predatory wars.
To allow the socialized economy of industrial mass
production to play its crucial modern role to guarantee the well-being,
security and rights of all, the organized working class must deprive
the ruling imperialist elite of their power to deprive the working
class of its right to bring into being its own independent politics of
nation-building and
democratic renewal in the twenty-first century and introduce scientific
planning into the basic sectors of the interrelated economy. Victory in
this organized battle for pro-social nation-building would be a fitting
memorial for Timothy Dagon and all other workers who have died at their
workplaces and otherwise suffered under the present imperialist
system.
Strike at CEZinc Refinery
Workers Step Up Actions to Defend Their Rights
- Pierre Chénier -
CEZinc zinc refinery workers' special general membership meeting, March
8, 2017.
The 331 workers at the CEZinc zinc refinery in
Salaberry-de-Valleyfield have been on strike since February 12
rejecting demands for anti-worker concessions. The company is owned by
Noranda Income Fund and the mining oligopoly Glencore.
Workers have stepped up their actions to defend their rights. On March
8 more than 300 participated in a special general membership meeting.
At the meeting the United Steelworkers Quebec Director Alain Croteau
appealed to all Steelworkers locals to financially support the striking
workers. He also pledged to provide legal support as the union intends
to take CEZinc to court over their use of scabs to operate the plant
and break the strike.
USW Local 6486, which represents the striking workers,
reports that inspectors from the Ministry of Labour noted the presence
of three strikebreakers during an inspection on February 27. The
workers who closely monitor the plant's entries and exits are convinced
that there are many more than three strikebreakers inside. In the first
days of the strike CEZinc obtained an injunction which limited the
number of picketers and kept them at a distance from the plant
permitting the company to bring in scabs, including by air.
Workers picket outside CEZinc refinery in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield,
February 13, 2017.
Under Quebec law, only people in managerial positions in
a company are authorized to do the work of striking workers and they
must have been hired before the beginning of negotiations for a new
collective agreement. The number of managers is far from sufficient to
maintain the current level of production at the plant. CEZinc is trying
by this means to break the strike while pocketing the highest possible
profits.
In addition, managers operating the plant poses a health and safety
concern for the public as the plant uses many toxic products whose safe
handling requires a trained workforce represented by an organized
defence collective that defends their interests. Workers now have to go
through the onerous process of mounting a case before the
Administrative Labour Tribunal to obtain an immediate injunction to
force CEZinc to cease its scab activities, while the substantive
argument is dealt with later.
 Workers are also demanding
that any electricity rate rebates granted to CEZinc be frozen for the
duration of the strike and that the terms of the rebates be made
public. In particular they are interested to know if there are
conditions in terms of the company's employment or investment levels.
When CEZinc's annual and final quarter results were released, workers
noted that the government is providing the refinery with significant
electricity rebates. In cryptic language, the company wrote in its
press release dated March 1 that "In November 2016, the Fund submitted
an application to the Quebec Ministry of Finance under its program for
electricity rate reduction for large industrial electricity consumers.
In February 2017, the Fund received notice that its application had
been accepted conditional to meeting additional milestones. There can
be no assurance that the Fund will be able to meet those milestones. "
The terms of the agreement themselves are secret but CEZinc has already
announced that it might not meet them.
Meanwhile, negotiations are at a standstill. CEZinc
spokesmen continue to insult the dignity of workers in their role as
producers of value by calling them "operating costs" to mask that the
company's objective is to lower the workers' claim on the new value
they produce and increase the claim of the company that is transferred
to those who own and control it.
 CEZinc spokespersons also
persist in embroiling workers in internal manoeuvring between Noranda
Income Fund and Glencore, which controls 25 per cent of the Fund and is
the sole supplier of zinc concentrate and the exclusive purchaser of
the zinc metal the workers produce. These manoeuvres regarding prices
within the private interests that own and control CEZinc have nothing
to do with solving any problem that workers and the metallurgical
sector are facing. The specifics are kept secret but they are raised to
divert workers from the struggle for what is rightfully theirs and
which they urgently need in view of the very difficult conditions in
which they carry out production.
Accepting concessions in the pension system and other aspects of their
work will only lower the real wages of workers and exacerbate their
conditions at retirement. This will not solve any problems related to
metallurgical production in a context where it is concentrated in the
hands of a small number of global oligopolies in service of their
narrow interests.
The struggle of CEZinc workers to make their strike
effective and to overcome attempts to extort anti-labour concessions
from them is just and deserves the support of all workers.
   
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