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