Lockout at Glencore's Smelter in Belledune, New Brunswick

Workers Demand Withdrawal of Reckless Concessionary Demands


USW Local 7085 representatives took part in Glencore's annual shareholders meeting
 in Zug, Switzerland, May 9, 2019, to oppose company's concessionary demands.

The lockout of workers at the Glencore smelter in Belledune, New Brunswick has now passed three weeks. Locked out workers from USW Local 7085 report they are determined to defend their rights, and demand the mining and metallurgical oligopoly Glencore retract its demands for onerous concessions.

Two members of Local 7085 plus a staff representative of the union travelled to Zug, Switzerland to take part in Glencore's annual shareholders' meeting on May 9. Supported by the IndustriAll Global Union, of which the United Steelworkers is an affiliate, they intervened in the meeting to oppose Glencore's concessionary demands on health and safety, union representation and pensions and benefits.[1] They met with the CEO of Glencore, with the board member who is chairman of the Health, Safety, Environment and Communities Committee, and with other board members.

According to a report from United Steelworkers District 6, which covers Ontario and Atlantic Canada, the Glencore workers explained the issues at the New Brunswick smelter and provided examples of harassment and an unsafe culture in the facility. The team made it clear that it expects a follow-up. The union is ready to negotiate but not on the basis of provocative anti-worker concessions, which endanger the health and safety of the workforce. If need be, the union will engage in a broad global public campaign to defend workers' rights at the smelter, the report said.

Meanwhile, locally, no contact has occurred between Glencore management and the union. The union told managers from the outset that Local 7085 is willing to go back to the bargaining table, but first the reckless concessionary demands on health and safety must be withdrawn. Workers report they remain hopeful that something positive will develop as the smelter is extremely productive, but at the same time, they are not willing to give up their just demand for the removal of Glencore's concessionary demands.

Glencore management on site continues to misinform the public by writing in the local newspapers that the dispute is over money. The president of the union Bart Dempsey told the press that of course workers would like to have a raise but the fight is not centred on wages but rather on forcing Glencore to remove their concessionary demands. As the union has repeatedly pointed out, workers at this point are basically asking to preserve what they have.

President Dempsey told Workers' Forum that workers are opposing Glencore's disinformation by explaining to the public the details and nature of the conflict. Up to April 2018, Glencore had not asked for any of these concessions. Management was even saying that it was willing to leave the contract exactly as is for another five years, if workers would accept a wage increase of only $0.45 an hour.

Workers at the time said such a small raise was not acceptable especially given that they had made large concessions, including on pensions, in the 2014 contract after Glencore merged with Xstrata and acquired the smelter. However, workers said they would consider Glencore's offer during formal negotiations where the paltry offer on wages could be discussed along with certain language in the collective agreement that was of concern.

But suddenly without warning, Glencore management came up with a long list of concessions and refused to consider any proposals from the workers. Workers report they never received a formal response for discussion of their proposals. Instead, the situation degenerated into one of company dictate and extortion with the cartel's aim being to worsen working conditions and smash the union.

Proof of this intransigence came on April 24 this year, when Glencore without any notice locked out the dayshift from entering the plant prior to the start of a legal strike scheduled to begin at 6:00 pm. Instead of opposing Glencore's reckless illegal action and refusal to negotiate, the Superior Court of New Brunswick sanctioned the behaviour by granting two court orders sought by the company, which hamper the ability of the workers to mount an effective picket line in defence of their rights.

Glencore and ABI Workers Face Global Oligopolies

The similarity between the situation facing the Glencore workers in Belledune, New Brunswick and the locked out ABI workers in Bécancour, Quebec is striking. In both cases workers appeared to be close to an agreement, if only the global cartels had engaged in good faith bargaining. Far from this happening, the oligopolies soured relations and went for the jugular, attacking the workers' basic rights and trying to break the union, all the while distorting the nature of the conflict and slandering the workers by accusing them of being responsible for the lockouts.

ABI and Glencore smelter workers and working people in general have a common cause in uniting to defend their rights against the power of the oligopolies and their state representatives. Across the country, the ruling financial oligarchy with its anti-social offensive has politicized its demands, taking over state powers and getting laws changed so as to impose austerity measures which weaken and dismantle social programs and regulations so that companies cannot be held to account for bad practices. Specific attacks on workers such as at ABI, Glencore, GM and Canada Post are clearly aimed at making unions ineffective as defence organizations of the workers. The parties which form the cartel party system to make sure the people cannot speak in their own name but remain marginalized and deprived of any effective voice whatsoever are all on board. There is no end in sight to the disequilibrium in the relations between the two main social classes: those who own and control the productive forces and buy workers' capacity to work, and the workers who sell their capacity to work to those in control, without the workers taking matters into their own hands and fighting for their rights within the fight for the rights of all.

Companies and their state representatives are attempting to turn this social relation into a one-sided dictate, using their global wealth and reach and the police powers of the state to overwhelm the working class, dampen its will to fight and deny workers what belongs to them by right. The courageous examples of the ABI and Glencore workers to give rights meaning in the 21st century are historic, as was the valiant fight of Hamilton steelworkers in USW Local 1005 who, through their defence of their pensions exposed the use of insolvency law and courts to smash the unions and defend what belongs to the workers by right. They have been joined by working people in all sectors of the economy who are standing up in defence of their rights and the rights of all. These fights, along with the broad countrywide and international support the ABI and Glencore workers are receiving, demonstrate the determination of the working class to unite in defence of their dignity and rights, and to develop new methods of struggle suitable for the new conditions of disequilibrium and the power of the cartels.

Notes

1. For more information on how Glencore decreed the lockout and the anti-worker concessions it is attempting to extort, and the courageous stand of the workers of Local 7085 in defence of their rights and dignity, read  "Workers Stand Up for Their Rights and Dignity," Workers' Forum, May 2, 2019.