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February
28,
2019
Unacceptable
Moves to Do Away with Collective Agreements
Alcoa's
Unacceptable Demand to
Run the ABI Smelter Without a Union
PDF
• Workers
Demand Arbitration and Intervention by Quebec Premier
- Interview, Clément Masse, President, United Steelworkers
Local
9700
• The "Legal" Termination of
Collective
Agreements -- Australian
Example - Pierre Chénier
Transportation
• Railway Workers' Courageous
Struggle to
Affirm the Human Factor
• Concerns of Railway Workers
- Lyndon
Isaak, President,
Teamsters Canada Rail Conference
Unacceptable Moves to Do Away with
Collective Agreements
At a general membership meeting held on
February 23, workers at the ABI aluminum smelter in
Bécancour, Quebec launched the call for binding
arbitration to
reach a collective agreement that will put an end to their
lockout.
They demanded that Quebec Premier François Legault
intervene to
exert pressure on the
Alcoa/Rio Tinto cartel to accept arbitration. The workers also
insist
the Premier reopen the Hydro-Québec energy agreement that
declares the lockout a "force majeure" and frees the owners from
their
obligation to pay for a block of hydro power reserved for them at
a
preferential rate.
The owners of ABI have said the door to
arbitration as
a means to settle the dispute is closed. An ABI spokesperson in
an
email wrote, "Arbitration will not secure the future of ABI.
Alternative processes are not the appropriate solutions to
resolve the
conflict."
Dominic Lemieux, Assistant to the United
Steelworkers'
Quebec Director gave this rebuke to Alcoa's position at the
membership
meeting: "If arbitration is not an option, if the 'alternative'
processes are not a solution and the negotiations are canceled,
what's
left? The unilateral imposition of the employer's position. This
is
contrary to the
very principle of good faith bargaining. Quebec citizens are
being held
hostage by a multinational, fattened up by our [cheap]
electricity
rates, acting in bad faith in a lockout financed through our
taxes. The
government must intervene. François Legault must
intervene."
Labour Minister Jean Boulet declared he could not
exert
pressure on the owners to accept arbitration. He said he would
propose
a possible settlement to both parties in early March. The workers
consider the minister's remarks on arbitration unacceptable and
are not
supportive of a possible settlement, as it would be drafted
without
them
being able to present their concrete demands. Minister Boulet has
already declared that his possible settlement will be based on
neo-liberal positions put forward by the mediation council
appointed by
him and chaired by former Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard, which
states:
"The objectives have been clearly identified [...]: operational
flexibility, productivity, job stability, plant sustainability
and a
climate of working relations."
Aluminum workers in Alma, members of United Steelworkers Local
9490,
stand in solidarity with locked-out workers at ABI.
These stock neo-liberal phrases are used to cover
up
the worst attacks on working conditions and the right of workers
to
wage an organized collective struggle in defence of their demands
and a
decisive say in determining their terms of employment and
enforcing any
collective agreement. Workers'
Forum
is publishing an article in this issue
on the situation facing Alcoa workers in Western Australia. The
struggle of Australian Alcoa workers reveals concretely where
such
neo-liberal nonsense spouted by Minister Boulet leads when the
global
monopolies impose it in practice in concert with the arbitrary
powers
of those states at their disposal.
Within the situation in Quebec where the
Alcoa/Rio
Tinto cartel completely refuses to negotiate with its smelter
employees, the workers are requesting arbitration and the
intervention
of the government so that they can present their views and
demands to
an impartial arbitrator who would also listen to the owners and
then
decide upon a
collective agreement. Workers' Forum calls upon all
Quebeckers
and Canadians to rally behind this just stand of the ABI workers
to end
the lockout.
- Interview, Clément Masse,
President, United Steelworkers Local 9700 -
USW Local 9700 holds press conference to announce its demand for
expedited arbitration to end the lockout at the Aluminerie de
Bécancour, February 23, 2019 (D. Malette)
Workers' Forum: ABI workers held
a
general meeting on February 23 to assess the situation. Can
you
tell us how the meeting went and what decisions were taken?
Clément Masse:
Nearly 700 workers participated. We explained what happened
in the
negotiations in the last few weeks. The workers could see that we
want
to negotiate but that the employer is maintaining its position
and
shows no intention of negotiating. We asked the workers to give
us a
mandate to
request arbitration in the dispute. This was adopted unanimously.
We
are asking the government to put pressure on the employer to
accept
this process or to negotiate in good faith. We are also asking
Quebec
Premier François Legault to intervene on the issue of
energy
contracts as he promised to do during the election campaign.
These are
the latest developments.
In essence, the employer is maintaining its new
demands
for concessions despite the fact that these points were already
settled
in the final offer of December 2018. We agreed to review
them. We
accepted some of them but the employer refused to move on the
most
important concessions, even in a minimal way. All of the
employer's
demands are for concessions, and the company insists that for
negotiations to move forward we have to accept them.
Negotiations are not stalled because our demands
have
been rejected by the employer, but because we are facing an
employer
that is constantly asking for concessions. A settlement,
according to
Alcoa, requires that we submit to all their demands. Instead of
jobs
with good wages and conditions, Alcoa wants to create jobs with
lower
wages
and to send our jobs to subcontractors where workers will have no
conditions [of work] worthy of the name. Essentially, what Alcoa
wants
is to run the plant without the union, to be able to do whatever
it
wants without constraints from the union at the workplace. This
is
unacceptable as far as we are concerned.
WF: Can you elaborate on the
request
for arbitration?
CM: We are asking for expedited
arbitration, not something that will take a year. The government
should
establish a timetable for the parties to make their points and a
deadline for the arbitrator to make a decision. At the end of the
arbitration, the parties would be bound by the decision of the
arbitrator. This is a real issue
with this lockout, which has lasted too long.
If we go to arbitration, it will have to be very
precise, and of course the parties can still reach an agreement
while
arbitration is underway. The Minister of Labour continually says
that
he wants to put pressure on the parties. If he is pushing for
arbitration and the employer agrees, it will put pressure for a
settlement. It is certain that the
procedures for arbitration would have to be discussed. As well,
there
are points on which we will not ask the arbitrator to decide,
those
matters on which there is agreement.
The employer has to agree to the arbitration
first,
which so far they have refused even before our application, but
we are
still applying and we will put pressure on the government to
ensure it
happens.
WF: Can you explain your request
for
intervention by Premier François Legault?
CM: We are asking for a meeting
with
the Premier. He must intervene to correct the imbalance of
forces.
Hydro-Québec is financing the lockout of the U.S.
multinational
with $165 million in 2018 alone. We want the Premier to
get
involved, as he said he would during the election campaign. We
want
him to reopen the energy contract that allows the employer to
cause a
loss of $700,000 a day for Hydro-Québec. The employer
is
not obligated to pay for the block of energy that is reserved for
it,
yet still benefits from the contract. The company is still paying
low
rates in Baie-Comeau, in Deschambault, and even at ABI, because
Alcoa is still paying a special rate for the hydro it uses in the
section of the plant that is still in operation during the
lockout. It
does not make sense that the government has negotiated a contract
like
this. It hurts the workers and it is up to the government to
correct
this situation.
Alcoa talks about "culture change." We talked
about
this at the meeting. What culture? The culture the employer wants
to
change is that it no longer wants to operate with a union. That
is its
culture. Do we live in a dictatorship where the employers decide
everything? Is the government going to assist Alcoa or
the 1,000
families who
are locked out? We are asking the Premier if that is the Quebec
we
want? The Premier says that his first concern is the "economy."
He says
he wants a Quebec that creates quality jobs, but what the
employer
wants to do is create exactly the opposite. If the Premier wants
to
create quality jobs he has to prove it by intervening in this
dispute.
- Pierre Chénier -
Alcoa workers protest outside the Western Australia Parliament in
Perth, August 22, 2018.
The Australian Workers' Union (AWU) announced in
January an
appeal of the decision of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) granting
Alcoa's application for the termination of the collective
agreement of more than 1,500 workers.[1]
The workers are employed
at six Alcoa
facilities in the state of Western Australia: three alumina
refineries, two bauxite mines and a port. The workers waged a
52-day strike in 2018 to oppose Alcoa's demands for concessions
on job security and its threat to terminate the collective
agreement, which expired on March 31, 2017. The workers tried to
negotiate without success a renewed collective agreement, called
an enterprise bargaining agreement in Australia.
The global giant Alcoa applied for termination of
the
expired
agreement in December 2018. The FWC granted the termination, to
be effective in January. This means the Alcoa workers no longer
have a collective agreement and are working under the minimum
standards established under the Fair Work Act 2009 and
other
labour legislation or any minimum Alcoa may dictate. The
Australian
Labour Party government
of the day passed this retrogressive national labour
legislation.
According to the Alcoa workers, working under the
Fair
Work
Act rather than their collective agreement would result
in an effective cut of 50 per cent or more of their current wages
and huge losses of benefits and pensions.
Alcoa announced in January that it would maintain
current
rates of pay, leave and pension provisions of the collective
agreement for six months. This implies the complete power of
Alcoa to dictate terms of employment without the consent of
workers. This state-imposed power means that when a new
collective agreement comes to a vote during the year, the
oligarchs expect the workers to submit to whatever anti-worker
concessions they demand.
In the most blatant anti-worker way, the Fair
Work
Act
2009 and the state power of the FWC allows enterprises to
eliminate workers' collective agreements and their collective
defence organizations and force employees to work under minimal
work standards over which they have no control and have not given
their consent. The Act says:
"225 Application for termination of an enterprise
(collective) agreement after its nominal expiry date
"If an enterprise agreement has passed its
nominal
expiry
date, any of the following may apply to the FWC for the
termination of the agreement:
"(a) one or more of the employers covered by the
agreement;
"(b) an employee covered by the agreement;
"(c) an employee organisation covered by the
agreement."
The Act says it has an underlying purpose to
promote
"national economic prosperity" by assisting monopolies operating
in Australia to enhance their performance and success in the
competition of the global market. To achieve this "prosperity"
and success of the monopolies, workers must agree to
"flexibility" in the operation of the facilities and submit to
"cooperative and productive workplace relations" over which
workers have no input, say or control.
The Act emanates from the outlook that workers do
not
produce
the value, which the company and economy require for their
existence but are a debilitating cost. According to this outlook,
the value workers reproduce for their own existence must be
constrained so Alcoa can expropriate more profit for itself and
in doing so compete with other global companies. Driving down the
living and working conditions of the working class is equated
with increasing "national economic prosperity." Such is the
backward view of the global financial oligarchy.
Under the arbitrary power and anti-worker logic
of the
Act,
the Deputy President of the FWC Abbey Beaumont granted Alcoa's
application to deprive workers of their collective agreement
declaring, "The Agreement was outdated and imposed restrictions,
inefficiencies, and unnecessary and unreasonable costs on Alcoa's
operations. Accordingly, the terms of the Agreement did not
afford Alcoa the flexibility to adjust its operations quickly and
efficiently in order to maximise its ability to extract advantage
from prevailing economic and operational requirements, or to
respond to changes in market conditions as and when they
arise."
The FWC mandate accords with Alcoa's arguments
that
terminating the enterprise agreement would not harm the "public
interest" because the public interest is synonymous with the
private interests of the ruling elite. This is an indication of
how far the usurpation of public authority by global private
interests has gone.
The situation in Australia strikes a chord with
Quebec
ABI
workers who are facing similar demands of flexibility and
efficiency at the expense of their rights, working conditions and
organized collective strength, compounded by Alcoa/Rio Tinto's
total refusal to negotiate with them, all of which is taking
place with the approval of the Quebec government.
To give some examples, the FWC in its 366-page
judgement
ruled that the collective agreement had to be declared null and
void because it has provisions prescribing minimum levels of
personnel. The FWC says these provisions prevent Alcoa from
determining the level of staffing according to what it deems
convenient to its "particular operational requirements, or
changed operational requirements, as and when they arise."
According to the FWC's Deputy President,
"Maintaining
minimum
manning levels limits Alcoa's ability to contract with third
parties or labour hire providers to perform work when it is
operationally efficient and cost effective to do so. In late
2015, it was apparent that Alcoa remained under financial
pressure partly because of an approximate 40 per cent drop in the
alumina price."
The FWC inadvertently spills the beans that the
global
market
price for alumina had fallen 40 per cent and workers must pay
with a loss of rights. Instead of serious investigation as to
what is wrong with imperialist globalization, which causes these
recurring crises and requires a new direction, the working class
becomes the target of the fury of the financial oligarchy.
The complaint that the collective agreement
"limits
Alcoa's
ability to contract with third parties or labour hire providers
to perform work when it is operationally efficient and cost
effective" refers to "rates for labour hire personnel." This
clause restricts the subcontracting of unionized jobs, which is
also a major issue in the ABI dispute in Quebec.
Alcoa pleads globally that it must not be
deprived
wherever
it operates of the economic advantage of outsourcing the hiring
of workers to temp agencies and international human traffickers.
The Australian agreement prescribes what it can pay these
outsourced workers at 78 per cent to 100 per cent of the hourly
base pay for the relevant job grade of an Alcoa employee, as well
as maintaining the same shift arrangements. According to the FWC,
these safeguards for the entire working class imposed a penalty
on Alcoa "that was greater than market rates." The market being
the labour market, which the global oligarchs have now extended
worldwide with millions of oppressed people desperate to make a
living and becoming prey of human traffickers.
When the AWU pointed out that from Alcoa's own
calculations
it recorded net profits totalling around $2.2 billion globally
during the operation of the enterprise agreement, the FWC Deputy
President replied:
"Alcoa's current profitability does not weigh
against
the
termination of the Agreement; particularly where it has a
rational basis for pursuing the changes in respect of restraints
of the nature covered in this decision. This is an important
point. Detailed evidence shows that there have been practical and
operational impacts arising out of the operation of the
Agreement. These have included marked delays in making
operational changes or being able to act upon decisions, the
expenditure of management and member time, and disharmony within
the workplace."
So, in "liberal democratic Australia," as in
other
countries
around the world, the ruling oligarchs can negate legally binding
negotiated agreements in favour of their narrow private
interests. Company profits must become even greater profits at
the expense of the living and working conditions and rights of
the working class. Workers rights count for nothing in this
imperialist world and are sacrificed in the reckless adventures
and fierce competition of the global oligopolies and the
recurring economic crises and wars. The necessity for change is
staring workers in the face as a challenge they must accept to
build the new.
The Australian Workers' Union and its members who
work
for Alcoa are rightfully resisting the negation of their
collective
agreement and the right to discuss, decide and give their consent
or
not to their wages and working conditions. Their fight merges as
one
with the struggle of Alcoa workers all over the world and
deserves the
firm support of all. The fight of the Australian workers has
clearly
brought to light what governments are up to in the name of an
alleged
duty to guarantee "economic prosperity." While the pretence is to
serve
the society, it merely refers to the profits of the financial
oligarchy
and oligopolies. In Quebec also, the Legault government repeats
the
mantra that Quebec is "Open for Business" to justify new
arrangements
which destroy social programs, destroy unions and good faith
bargaining, destroy health and safety standards on job sites and
in
places of work and attack immigrants in favour of human
trafficking. It
must not pass!
Perth, August 22, 2018
Note
1. The Fair Work Commission is
Australia's labour relations tribunal.
Transportation
  
Railway workers are facing huge challenges in the
fight
for their rights and the rights of all, including the important
battle for their own safety and that of the public. They have
been waging a courageous struggle for many years to affirm their
rights in the face of anti-social concepts and practices of all
kinds put forward by the rail monopolies and successive federal
Liberal and Conservative governments. The outlook of the ruling
elite negates the human factor and social consciousness putting
maximum profit for private interests as the deciding factor on
all issues.
Railway workers face industry deregulation
allowing the
rail
monopolies to determine their own policies with the government
rubber stamping them. This includes safety programs that are
private and privileged and not open to scrutiny by anyone outside
the railway companies themselves.
Workers face what is called risk management
rather than
having an all-out effort to eliminate all risks and hazards as
much as possible as a matter of principle for those who work and
the public. These risks include worker fatigue caused by
management putting workers on-call 24/7, amongst other things.
The openly-avowed goal of the rail monopolies is to run the
railways without the presence and input of human beings and any
norms or prescriptions of social responsibility. This has
resulted in workforce downsizing, disciplining workers under
various pretexts, including those who raise issues of operation
safety, spying on workers through recording devices etc resulting
in denial of rights and constant rail accidents.
Rail workers are fighting to affirm the human
factor,
the
role played by socially conscious human beings, particularly
those who actually operate and maintain the trains and who seek
to uphold their own safety and that of the public. Workers are
organized into collective defence organizations, which become the
collective force to back their individual efforts to defend
themselves and the public. They are fighting to have a decisive
say over how railways are operated so as to bring them into the
modern realm of social responsibility. Their fight deserves the
full support of all Canadian workers and the broad public.
Workers' Forum is reproducing below an
article
written by Lyndon Isaak, newly elected
President of the Teamsters Canada
Rail Conference, which highlights some of the
railway workers' concerns at this time.
- Lyndon Isaak, President,
Teamsters
Canada Rail Conference -
My name is Lyndon Isaak and I am the President of
Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC). I was elected
to this position on January 11 by the membership of the TCRC
and
we, as a union, represent over 10,000 members in Canada.
I have worked for CN Rail since 1987 in the
positions of brakeman, conductor and locomotive engineer. I have
been
involved in the legislative side of our union since 2007.
This
involves health and safety as well as regulatory affairs from the
worker's perspective.
Three of the major concerns that the TCRC
currently
faces are:
1. Training of New Employees
The training of new employees is governed by the
Railway Employee Qualification Standards Regulations, a document
which
came into force in 1987. This document makes reference to a
body
named the Canadian Transport Commission as the government agency
that
the railroad companies would report any changes in their training
standards to. In 1988 the Canadian Transport Commission was
renamed the National Transportation Agency, which no longer holds
the
same purview as its predecessor. As a result, training standards
have
been left to the discretion of the railroad companies. The
railroad's
recent history of accidents, injuries and fatalities is a
testament to
our
grave concerns.
2. Fatigue
In December 2018 a ministerial order under
Section 19 of the Railway Safety Act was announced
regarding the work/rest rules for operating employees (engineers,
conductors, etc.). The railroad industry is required to update
the
current work/rest rules which were originally established
in 2002.
This order
specifically requires the railroad companies to incorporate
modern and
established fatigue science in revising the existing rules. A
large
majority of our members currently work on call 24 hours a
day with
no designated days off, other than annual vacation. The concern
of
fatigue and its effect on our members has been an ongoing issue
as far
back as I can remember; I'm hopeful that at least some of our
problems
will be addressed in this revision.
3. Discipline
The preferred methods of discipline that the
railroad
companies utilize against our members are either the Brown system
(demerits) or unpaid suspensions. Our concerns stem from a
pattern of
lower degrees of discipline when the railroad companies are busy
and
manpower is in high demand as opposed to when rail traffic is
diminished and
discipline is what we perceive as excessive for the transgression
committed. The railroads seem to strive to keep the manpower
numbers
optimal which means that it may be preferable to suspend or
dismiss
employees instead of instituting layoffs. A good example of
unjustified
discipline has to do with our members being off sick or unfit for
work.
There have been cases where our members received demerits or an
unpaid
suspension simply because the member was ill. Some of the
railroad
companies state that they no longer accept or consider sick notes
as
justification for absence. Although any discipline for sickness
is
contrary to Section 239 Part 3 of the Canada Labour
Code,
some of the railroad companies persist in this policy.
Lastly, I've often wondered about the logic in
the
method which the Rules are created for the railroad industry in
Canada.
Currently Section 19 of the Railway Safety Act states
that
the Minister may order a railroad company to formulate or revise
a rule
for a particular matter. The role of the TCRC is to provide
commentary
on
the rule submitted by the companies or their lobbyist. I question
why
any government would task a group of corporate executives or
their paid
lobbyist to formulate or revise a rule. The focus should be
safety, for
the employees and the public, and who better than the people who
actually work on the railroad through the union which represents
them in consultation with Transport Canada to create or revise a
rule?
If you think about it, the union provides the perfect balance: a
focus
on health and safety yet cognizant of the fact that the employers
need
to turn a profit to ensure the viability of their companies.
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