Windsor Salt Strike Enters 17th Week
Workers Face Disinformation Campaign
As
the strike at Windsor Salt enters its 17th week, word about the strike
and its significance is spreading. The company, governments, and the
media are doing their best to disinform everyone about what is at
stake. They try to paint the resistance of the workers to attacks on
their rights as an impediment to negotiations, even though everyone
knows it is the company that is not engaging in negotiations and just
wants the workers to accept their dictate by threatening them with a
scenario that the only alternative is to stay out on strike forever.
To date, no media other than Empower Yourself Now and Workers' Forum explain what is going on. The company has issued one statement concerning an alleged assault, which they used to then talk about how they are the victims in the strike and simply want a fair deal. Showing the company's true colours, the workers inform that negotiations are now conducted with the union via e-mail after the company broke off face-to-face negotiations at the end of April. The union sends e-mails and the company's lawyer will respond much later by e-mail. This makes the statement that the company thinks it can do whatever it wants. In fact, it reveals for all to see its arrogance and the disrespect in which it holds its workers, their union, and the entire city of Windsor.
Where are the governments of Canada and Ontario to hold the company to account? Nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately, the CBC has joined the lament that the future for the salt workers is grim so long as they don't settle.
On May 30, CBC News printed an article on the occasion of day 101 of the strike.[1] Titled "Workers feeling the pinch as Windsor Salt strike stretches on," under the guise of a news story, the article says how financially difficult the strike is. As if that is news! It then insinuates that the workers' resistance is to blame for lost revenue of the Windsor Port Authority. Citing a water picket line the workers established that prevented a shipment of salt from leaving the port for a short time, it said this is why the Port Authority decided "not to try to bring in any other ships because it was too dangerous." This is a crass attempt to isolate and blame the workers for the financial hardships of other workers, whether it be those at the port or in industries that rely on shipping to transport goods or materials they produce or need.
Surely, CBC Windsor could help lift the pressure on the workers by seeking truth from facts and reporting with integrity, not indulging in an essentially anti-worker propaganda campaign.
Meanwhile, there is incessant talk from all sides about the panacea of new jobs from the Green Energy boom funded by the public purse. On June 1, Premier Doug Ford came to Windsor-Essex to make announcements about highway widening and skilled trades training for high school students, all in the context of ongoing negotiations between the Ontario and federal governments and Stellantis in which both levels of government are working out how much more they will pay Stellantis to continue building their battery factory in Windsor. Following the government giveaways to Volkswagen in St. Thomas, Stellantis stopped construction in Windsor until they get matching funds.
In Kingsville, Ontario, Ford called on all levels of government to "come together to protect tens of thousands of jobs." He praised the Carpenters' Union and the Labourers' International Union of North America (LiUNA) for their training of young people in skilled trades and his "great partnership" with Unifor Local 444. Meanwhile, when it comes to 250 workers and members of Unifor Locals 1959 and 240, who are defending their jobs from an anti-union assault by a foreign holding company, Ford did not say a word. He did not visit their picket lines and no media asked him why he does not support the salt workers as well.
The Ford government is only interested in claiming that public subsidies for critical mineral extraction and battery making will benefit Ontario workers, while the salt miners who are also engaged in mining and processing of a critical mineral, count for nothing.
Attempts to isolate the salt workers, blame them for allegedly not doing the right thing by coming under the dictate of the union-busting U.S. company that owns Windsor Salt, and to divide the community by inciting people against them, will not fly. The working people of Windsor-Essex and the community of Windsor-Essex are one. The one does not exist without the other. The one is the other. The CBC and others should get that into their heads.
To the chagrin of those who want the workers to capitulate, the workers are clear that they are defending themselves, the community, and the country itself from a vicious assault by a U.S. holding company hell bent on attacking what Canadian workers have established over generations. In this, they have the support of fellow workers everywhere because it is one fight for the rights of all.
Entering the 17th week of the strike, a major matter of concern for the workers is how to collectively oppose the disinformation campaign. Empower Yourself Now has full confidence that it is by fighting for a just cause that solutions can be found.
Note
1. For CBC News article click here
(Empower Yourself Now)
This article was published in
Number 31 - June 12, 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2023/Articles/WO10311.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca