Alcoa/Rio Tinto's Manipulation of
"Force
Majeure"
to Achieve Its Anti-Worker Aims
Workers
Demand
Legault Government Make
Alcoa/Rio Tinto Meet Its Commitments
on Energy
Contract
- Pierre Chénier -
Protest by ABI smelter workers, March 1, 2019, outside Premier
Legault's
office. Banner reads "Disgusted by paying for [Alcoa's
electricity]."
During the over year-long Alcoa/Rio Tinto lockout
of
1,030 ABI smelter workers, a lot of attention has been drawn to
the
"force
majeure" clause in the cartel's hydroelectric contract with the
Government of Quebec and Hydro-Québec. Since the lockout
began
on January 11, 2018 the use of "force majeure" to stop most of
Alcoa/Rio Tinto’s contracted energy payments has deprived
Hydro-Québec of the sale of more than $250 million in
electricity reserved for the cartel.
 While working people
demand
the cartel must abide by the contract, which allows it
preferential
hydro rates, the Legault government has hidden behind the farce
of a
"force majeure" depriving Hydro-Québec and the people of
Quebec
of a huge sum of money and in part financing this unjust lockout
and
assault on
peoples' livelihoods and their
communities. The people, with increasing strength of conviction,
demand
the Legault government enforce the energy contract and not allow
Alcoa/Rio Tinto to attack Quebec workers and breach their social
obligations with impunity.
The Quebec government and Hydro-Québec
arranged new preferential electricity rates for the three Alcoa
aluminum smelters at Bécancour, Deschambault and
Baie-Comeau
which
came into effect on January 1, 2015. The deal sets aside blocs of
electricity, which Hydro-Québec is obliged to produce and
Alcoa
is
supposed to buy. The arrangement includes a "force majeure
clause"
defined as the following:
"'Force majeure'
means any unforeseeable, irresistible
event beyond the control of a Party that delays, interrupts or
impedes
the performance, in whole or in part, by that Party of its
obligations
under the Contract. [WF
emphasis]
Without
limiting the scope of what is
written above, any one of the following events constitutes a
'force
majeure': war, embargo, insurrection, invasion, riot, rebellion,
social
unrest, epidemic, flood, fire, explosion, lightning, earthquake,
ice
storm, thunderstorm, sabotage, labour dispute, strike, picketing
or
lockout (including labour disputes, strikes, picketing and
lockouts by
the Party which invokes 'force majeure'), as well as any act,
omission
and any
coercion by a court or a public authority (including default or
delay
in issuing permits despite reasonable efforts in this
regard)."
"The Party
affected
by a Force Majeure Event shall have
its obligations suspended only to the extent that it acts with
due
diligence in order to eliminate or correct the causes and effects
of
this 'force majeure.' However, the resolution of labour disputes,
strikes, picketing and lockouts is at the sole discretion of the
affected Party facing these
difficulties."
The government and Hydro-Québec granted
the new
preferential electricity rates following Alcoa's threat to close
its
three aluminum smelters as of January 1, 2015, if it did not
receive
new rates even lower than the existing preferential rates. As
part of
this one-sided negotiation and signing of a new contract under
threat
of closure,
the "force majeure" clause contained in the previous energy
contracts
was
renewed.
Today, the government claims it must abide by the
terms
of the contract and cannot do anything. Aside from the global
cartels
forcing these one-sided contracts on public authorities to serve
their
narrow private interests, the contract clearly states that the
"force
majeure" must be "unforeseeable, irresistible and beyond the
control of
a Party." The
planned and calculated lockout can in no way be described as
"unforeseeable, irresistible and out of its control" and has
always
been completely under its control and could have been avoided.
The fact
that the contract contradicts its own words by saying the
resolution of
the lockout is at the sole discretion of the company shows how
these
supranational private interests have gained control of public
authorities wherever they operate and dictate their narrow
wishes.
Before the Alcoa/Rio Tinto cartel locked out the
workers it twice withdrew from the bargaining table instead of
completing negotiations: in November 2017 and again in December
2017.
The company made what it called a final offer in December saying
a
rejection by the workers would mean in effect the rejection of
any
further
negotiations.
ABI smelter workers, March 1, 2019, outside Premier Legault's
office.
The ABI workers resisted the ultimatum and
threats and
following the holidays, on January 9 and 10, 2018, turned down
the
offer
while acknowledging that the offer could be the basis for an
agreement
and that a settlement was close. While the union requested a
meeting
with the company to explain the reason for its rejection of the
offer,
Alcoa immediately closed the plant and locked out the workers at
3:00
am on the night of January 11, 2018. Not only did the cartel
declare a
lockout, it shutdown two-thirds of the tanks, which require
considerable planning both to shut down and restart. It was
obviously a
planned move and in no way outside of the control of the company.
In
contrast,
in 2004 when the workers went on strike, the company continued to
operate all the tanks for about a month. The cartel's refusal to
negotiate, even after being told a settlement was close, was in
clear
violation of fair collective bargaining but no public authority
took
any action to hold it to account or force it to pay for the bloc
of
energy reserved for
it.
Other alternatives to a lockout existed for
Alcoa/Rio
Tinto, which cannot pretend the lockout decision was not its own,
forseeable and
under its control. Lockouts have become a commonplace
weapon of the global cartels, which use their immense wealth,
influence
with public authorities, global production and control of
markets, to
isolate
pockets of workers and force them to submit to the cartel's
demands.
This lockout in Becancour is happening at the same
time
that Alcoa in Western Australia got Australia's national
workplace
relations tribunal to nullify the collective agreement of 1,500
Alcoa
workers, under the Fair Work
Act 2009.
Workers'
conditions
are
now being governed by the minimum employment
standards' legislation, which means that all the protections that
were
in their collective agreement regarding job security,
subcontracting
and related affairs have been wiped out, besides the loss of
wages,
benefits and pensions. Is what Alcoa achieved in Australia
indicative
of where they are headed in Quebec? Has the prolongation of the
lockout
been manipulated to achieve nefarious results such as the ones
imposed
in Australia with government connivance?
Despite the wording of the "force majeure" clause
in
Hydro-Québec's contract with Alcoa which leaves everything
to do
with a lockout to the discretion of the company, the very idea of
"force majeure" implies that it is outside of human control. In
English, another term for "force majeure" is "Act of God." What
is
happening at ABI is not out of the company's control. On the
contrary,
it is a clear manipulation of "force majeure" to achieve
anti-worker
aims. The balance of forces is so one-sided precisely because the
government objectively intervenes on the side of the corporation
when
it refuses to call the company to order for its manipulation of
the
"force majeure" clause. If the company had to pay what it owes on
the
hydro contract for the past 14 months since it locked the workers
out,
it would not be so blithe in thinking it can just impose
its
demands on workers who have been without their wages for all that
time.
The Quebec government refuses to defend its own
people
while siding with the Alcoa/Rio Tinto global cartel. To declare
the
well-planned lockout as out of the control of the cartel is a
farce and
exposes the government as a stooge of the global financial
oligarchy.
The Quebec government must do its duty and force ABI to respect
the
contract,
pay for the block of energy set aside for it, lift the lockout
and
engage in fair collective bargaining with the smelter workers and
their
union.
This article was published in
Number 8 - March 7, 2019
Article Link:
Alcoa/Rio Tinto's Manipulation of
"Force
Majeure" : Workers
Demand
Legault Government Make
Alcoa/Rio Tinto Meet Its Commitments
on Energy
Contract - Pierre Chénier
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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