New Breakthroughs Using Sodium for Electric Batteries
Control Over Canada's Critical Mineral Resources
Mural of Salt plant in Windsor painted by local artists in
support of striking workers.
There is quite a bit of discussion in industry papers of new breakthroughs using sodium for electric batteries. Huge salt deposits exist in Canada, with some of the most important ones being the Goderich and Ojibway salt mines located in southwestern Ontario. The Goderich mine is owned by Kansas-based Compass Minerals, while the Ojibway Windsor Salt mine in Windsor, Ontario, and a similar mine in Detroit, Michigan across from Windsor are owned by California-based Stone Canyon Industries Holdings Inc. (SCIH).
SCIH became the biggest owner of salt capacity in North America after it bought Morton Salt, which owned Windsor Salt, in 2021 in part using investments from the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. It has been engaged in restructuring its salt business by closing production in Alberta and attacking workers' unions. Workers at its Ojibway mine and evaporation plant have been on strike since February 17 in defence of their demands against a company drive to increase contracting out to non-union labour.
Of note is that since Stone Canyon purchased both the Ojibway mine and evaporation facility, it has expanded their productive capacity by adding a new level to the mine and new brine wells for evaporated salt. The Windsor Salt facilities currently on strike in Windsor, Ontario sit almost halfway between the future Clarios Meadowbrook sodium-ion battery plant in Michigan and a soon to be built Volkswagen battery plant in St. Thomas, Ontario which is also being financed by the Canadian government.[1]
This means that SCIH is now in control of a valuable source of Canadian salt, set to become even more valuable given its role in electrification. It adds a whole new dimension to company attempts to impose contracting out in the current contract the workers are trying to negotiate at Windsor Salt. Contracting jobs out to non-union labour will ipso facto weaken the workers' defence organization, their union, and this will increase health and safety concerns, put downward pressure on union wages and be used to cause acrimony within the ranks of the work force.
With the support of governments at all levels and subsidies through pay-the-rich schemes said to be good for prosperity, stability and security, profits will increase. The expanded demand for salt and the expanded productive capacity at the Windsor Salt mine is crucial to the success of these schemes. Thus, the fight of workers to claim what is theirs by right and defend their union and right to negotiate a new collective agreement without having to deal with the company impunity is a fight which upholds the right of all workers and of Canada itself for a nation-building project which ensures that the value from this Canadian natural resource benefits Canada and is not ripped out of the country to pay dividends to SCIH's owners.
Note
1. See "Problems with "Green Energy" Projects – Massive New Subsidy for Volkswagen Battery Facility to be Built in St. Thomas, Ontario," TML Monthly, April 2023.
This article was published in
Number 25 - May 10, 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2023/Articles/WO10254.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca