Alcoa and Quebec Government Work in Tandem to Attack Workers' Rights

In mass membership meeting March 11, 2019 the workers massively reject Alcoa's offer and back-to-work protocol, one almost identical to that which the Quebec government is pushing.

(Metallos)

Instead of standing with Quebec working people in solidarity against an unjust attack by a powerful global oligopoly, Quebec Minister of Labour Jean Boulet is engaged in a sideshow to attack locked-out ABI smelter workers of USW Local 9700 in Bécancour. Boulet is scurrying all over the place declaring his "disappointment" that the union will not present the Alcoa/government proposal for capitulation to a general membership meeting and hold a vote on it.

Boulet likewise refuses to acknowledge that the workers massively voted against a similar proposal on March 11. Boulet is engaging in a campaign to portray the union in a negative light, even declaring it undemocratic for not taking the Alcoa/government proposal back to the membership for a vote. In doing so, Boulet seeks to gloss over his government's refusal to make Alcoa live up to its contract with Quebec Hydro to pay for its bloc of energy during the lockout or pressure the global company into negotiating a settlement or accepting arbitration.

Boulet wants workers to vote again on something they already rejected. In doing so he dismisses the strong stand of union members in defending their rights in their vote and words of March 11, when members declared openly and in great numbers that Alcoa, despite its pumped up global power and dictatorial behaviour, would have to respect their rights and negotiate a collective agreement agreeable to workers or submit the conflict to arbitration.

This article was published in

Number 16 - May 2, 2019

Article Link:
Alcoa and Quebec Government Work in Tandem to Attack Workers' Rights

    

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