Salt Workers Across Canada Learning Together
Another Windsor Salt Operation on the Magdalen Islands, Quebec
Opération Mines Seleine on Grosse-Île in the Magdalen Islands, Quebec
Workers from another Windsor Salt mine owned by Stone Canyon Industries Holdings Inc. have informed Empower Yourself Now about their concerns with this union-busting company. Opération Mines Seleine on Grosse-Île in the Magdalen Islands, Quebec, are rock salt mines with seven salt domes, a type of structural dome formed when salt (or other evaporite minerals) intrudes into overlying rocks in a process known as diapirism. Salt domes are important in petroleum geology as they can function as petroleum traps for both oil and natural gas, which is one of the reasons that many salt deposits have been discovered while surveying for oil.
The Mines Seleine opened in 1982 and was sold to Windsor Salt in 1988. It produces road salt to be used in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. In 2009, it was taken over by K+S, a German company that bought Windsor Salt. K+S was later bought by Stone Canyon in its bid to become the largest salt producer in North America. Workers in Pugwash, Nova Scotia reported that salt from the Mines Seleine was brought in during their strike, the first with Stone Canyon and its union-busting law firm in Canada, to force the salt workers in Pugwash to accept a concessionary contract.
Mines Seleine produces more than 1,300,000 metric tonnes of rock salt each year. It is currently expected that activities at the mine will be able to continue for another 30 years. Around 145 people work at Mines Seleine, most of them residents of the Magdalen Islands. After 30 years of activity, Mines Seleine now has a second generation of Magdalen Islanders working as miners.
The workers point out that they can barely meet their production targets now, meaning that there is no way they can be pushed into doing more overtime to meet the quotas that Windsor's Ojibway rock salt mine produces while the workers there are on strike. The contract of the Mines Seleine workers expires in October 2024, so they are following closely what takes place in Windsor to see how they can be effective.
This article was published in
Number 31 - June 12, 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2023/Articles/WO10315.HTM
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