Today, January 26th at 2:30 we will be having our Grand Opening for our new state or the art union hall/ conference center. Light refreshment and snacks will be served. C'mon out and see your new building!!!

Vale Inco convicted of unfair labour practice in landmark decision of Ont. Labour Board

TORONTO, Dec. 23, 2011 /CNW/ - United Steelworkers won a major victory at the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) against Vale mining company in a case stemming from their year long strike. Sixteen months after the strike at Vale during which time Vale banned USW Local 6500 Vice-President Patrick Veinot from its property and thereby denied membership access to him on company property, in a stinging rebuke to the company, the OLRB has found that Vale's conduct is unlawful. The Board has ordered that the company cease and desist.

OLRB Chair Bernard Fishbein wrote: "I think the message Vale Inco has sought to communicate is cold and hard (regardless of its precise motivations) and I conclude that there has been a substantial interference both in the administration of the Union and its representation of employees (or in the words of the Canada Labour Relations Board that have "the effect of undercutting or weakening the union").

"Our membership welcomes the Vice President back to their workplaces to perform his duties on their behalf and so do I" beamed Local 6500 President Rick Bertrand, a long time colleague and associate of Veinot. As Vice-President, Veinot chairs the important Local 6500 grievance committee, meeting with grievors and union stewards on company property to work through the grievance procedure and enforce the collective agreement. "Controlling this company is no easy task," added Bertrand, but this union will ensure that the rights of its members are advanced and protected, whatever it takes." added Bertrand.

If Vale Ltd. is so confident it had good reason to dismiss eight Steelworkers during the union's year-long strike, it shouldn't be reluctant to let a provincial arbitrator determine if they were fired with just cause, says the union's lawyer.

But Vale argues its confidence that the firings were justified demonstrates the care that company officials took to make those decisions.

Those statements were presented during final arguments at an Ontario Labour Relations Board hearing into the union's call for arbitration for its eight fired members.

More than a dozen days of testimony were held in Toronto into a bad-faith bargaining complaint filed by United Steelworkers at the six-month mark in their July 2009-July 2010 strike against the Brazilbased mining company.

The final six hours of arguments were presented to a three-member panel from the OLRB at the Holiday Inn on Thursday.

The panel will issue a written decision on the matter several weeks or even months from now.

Nine members of United Steelworkers Local 6500 were fired during the strike, and Vale has insisted ever since it had the right to do so because they violated the company's code of conduct.

One Steelworker retired immediately afterward, but the lives and careers of the remaining eight have been hanging in the balance ever since.

Five of the fired eight -- Patrick Veinot, Michael French, Jason Patterson, Ron Breault and Brian Miller -- sat in the front row of an audience of about 100 spectators at the final day of hearings.

None of the fired Steelworkers attended earlier hearing dates because there was some question of whether they might be called as witnesses during the proceedings.

USW lawyer Brian Shell spoke for three hours, repeatedly stating that Vale had a duty to bargain in good faith.


The original complaint filed in January 2010 was that Vale was not negotiating with the union.

By the time the two sides resumed contract talks, most of the nine had been fired and their return to work became a stumbling block in talks to reach a new collective agreement.

Shell told the panel, headed by labour board vice-chair Ian Anderson, that all of eight workers want to return to their jobs.

Two are working with the union -- Veinot as vice-president and Patterson as secretary- treasurer -- but others have had to leave Sudbury to find jobs.

Each of the workers has "significant seniority," said Shell, and each wishes to remain a part of the community.

He speculated each is likely to be reinstated when the board rules on the complaint.

Shell argued the union had met the company halfway by suggesting the firings go to arbitration instead of insisting dismissed workers return to the job with the rest of members when the strike was resolved.

Vale lawyer Barry Brown summed up the company's earlier testimony that it was well within its rights to fire the workers.

Brown said Vale had "valid reasons ... for taking the position it took."

The two lawyers argued about whether the strike had been prolonged from June 22, when an agreement was reached on business issues except for the firings, to July 4, when a tentative deal was reached. It was ratified July 8.

That only occurred when the matter of the fired workers was referred to the labour board.

Brown described the labour dispute as a "nasty, often violent strike" in which non-union employees were subjected to abuse, intimidation, threats and violence when they crossed picket lines.

" You've seen the video," Brown told the panel, referring to evidence presented earlier in Toronto. "There is good reason to believe this group of strikers was not seeking to inform the public of their bargaining position," he said.

The video was part of a report from protection officers that prompted Vale's chief operating officer John Pollesel, who testified earlier, to say that it made it impossible to reinstate the workers.

Brown said security personnel had concerns for the safety of non-union staff who were being intimated at the picket line, in coffee shops and in grocery stores, and with harassing phone calls.

Vale made it known to employees that type of behaviour would not be tolerated.

"We know that more than nine employees engaged" in this type of behaviour, said Brown.

"But that does not detract from the company's belief the nine were responsible for the most serious of misconduct," he said.

While Vale's system of identifying strikers who misbehaved was not perfect, it did allow the company to believe "that the nine were among the worst and prevent their return to work."

Shell said Thursday's that the fired workers received letters saying they were dismissed, but were not presented with the evidence of how they had violated the company's code of conduct.

"Sure, it was a strike, and there were difficulties, but there were two sides to the picket line that created those difficulties," said Shell.

He reiterated that if Vale's reasons were valid for dismissing the strikers, those reasons need to be presented to the tribunal.

Shell said throughout final arguments that Vale's refusal to rehire the workers was designed to embarrass the union and flex its muscle.

http://www.sudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3399545

An Ontario Labour Relations Board hearing has wrapped up Sudbury today. A decision is not expected for several months. Lawyers for Vale Ltd. and the United Steelworkers are presenting final arguments in a complaint by the union to the board.

Nine workers were fired during the United Steelworkers Local 6500 strike against Vale in July 2009 and July 2010. Vale dismissed the workers because of alleged misconduct on picket lines during the strike. Five are at the meeting: Patrick Veinot, Mike French, Brian Miller, Ron Breault, Jason Patterson.

The Star's Carol Mulligan, who is at the hearing, reports that the Steelworkers lawyer argued Vale's "intractability" over fired workers an attempt to "geld" the union in the eyes of members. The issue of fired workers was the "sole issue" that caused strike to drag from June 22 until July 4 in 2010, the union's lawyer told the OLRB.

The lawyer said Vale has "failed miserably" to justify its "intractability" on not sending fired 8 to arbitration.

Labour council presiden John Closs said use of replacement workers during Vale strike "raised temperature" of dispute.

Vale lawyer Barry Brown will deliver final arguments after lunch break at OLRB hearing into fired eight.

The hearing is expected to be finished at 5:30 p.m.

Will be updated.

http://www.sudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3398230

TO ALL USW LOCAL 6500 MEMBERS.

Brothers and Sisters,

The Chief Stewards would like to remind all Local 6500 members who have any split special hours they haven’t used this year and wish to carry over, to do so by December 1st.

The vacation payout for this year has often been only half of your hourly wage (roughly $14-$17/hour). If you carry your remaining hours over and take them next year, you will make your normal vacation pay (roughly $30-$40/hour).

Please make sure the Company has written notification of your wishes to carry your remaining split vacation hours forward to the next year. You must do this through your Supervisor.

A copy of the form you need to complete to inform the Company of your wishes, as per Article 16.01 (l) of our Collective Agreement, is available for download on our website – www.uswlocal6500.ca. If you are unable to print the document off the website, contact Kim at the Union Hall at 675-3381, ext. 243, and she will either email you a copy, or you can pick it up in person.

Before December 1st, make sure you:

Fill out and hand in the form to your Supervisor; Have your Supervisor sign and date the form; KEEP A COPY FOR YOUR RECORDS!

If you have any questions, contact your Committeeman or your Chief Steward.



In Solidarity,

Patrick Veinot

Chairperson
General Grievance Committee
United Steelworkers Local 6500

DOWNLOAD FORM HERE

Issued Wednesday, November 16, 2011 by USW Local 6500

The Searcher Nov. 2011 Edition

Stobie Mine site, Sudbury

SUDBURY - United Steelworkers (USW) members in Sudbury and across North America are mourning the loss of two miners killed on the job Wednesday.

"On behalf of all our members, I extend our deepest condolences to the families, friends and co-workers of Jordan Fram and Jason Chenier, who were respected and loved by so many," said Rick Bertrand, President of USW Local 6500 in Sudbury.

"Their tragic loss is mourned throughout our community and beyond."

Fram, 26, and Chenier, 35, died when they were struck by a fall of muck at an ore pass 3,000 feet underground at Vale's Stobie Mine in Sudbury. Fram and Chenier had six and 11 years of experience, respectively, with the company.

Fram and Chenier have been described as tremendous co-workers and friends to many. Chenier was a caring husband and father of two young children. Fram was well-known in the community as a former junior hockey player and talented athlete.

The Ontario Ministry of Labour has closed Stobie Mine while the fatal accident is being investigated. The Labour Ministry, along with the Steelworkers, Vale and local police, are involved in the investigation.

"The Steelworkers will be involved in this investigation every step of the way," Bertrand said. "Once the investigation is complete we will work hard for the workplace to be restored to safe condition before it starts up again."

"For our members and for our community, this tragedy is a painful reminder of the potential danger mine workers confront on the job every day," said USW District 6 Director Wayne Fraser.

"The United Steelworkers union has always been at the forefront of efforts to improve workplace health and safety," Fraser added. "We will work to ensure this investigation leads to greater safety not only in this workplace but for all workers in the mining industry."

- 30 -

Contacts:
Rick Bertrand, President, USW Local 6500, 705-675-3381;
Wayne Fraser, Director, USW District 6, 416-243-8792, 416-577-4045.

Clash of cultures blamed in Vale Inco strike
Lack of communication and mutual respect to blame for 8-month strike in Sudbury, former top executive says

Vale Inco strikers stopped a truck full of ore outside the Clarabelle Mill in Sudbury last October. Company workers have been on strike since July, 2009.
STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR

Mark Cutifani runs a gold mining company in South Africa now, long gone from Vale Inco in Canada where he had begun engaging workers and changing an adversarial climate that had defined labour relations for more than half a century.
That adversarial climate is back in a big way at the mining giant in Sudbury and Port Colborne, where more than 3,100 employees have remained off the job in an increasingly bitter 8 1/2-month strike.
The classic labour-management struggle threatens to set back labour relations for years and undermine the value of one of the richest mineral deposits in the world.
The United Steelworkers union says a clash of cultures is at the root of the dispute. It argues that Inco's Brazilian owners want to instill a foreign brand of subservient labour relations here; run roughshod over existing workers' rights and cut bonus pay at a time when the company is profitable.
Vale Inco says the union's statements smack of racism and the company rejects the idea that cultural differences have anything to do with the strike.
The company claims the union is misleading its members badly. It says the union steadfastly refuses to accept that the Sudbury operations need significant restructuring to make them profitable and internationally competitive over the long term, because local mining costs are rising as the company digs deeper to reach rich reserves.
The intransigence, finger pointing and outright verbal warfare are not in the playbook of the personable Cutifani, who left in 2007 after receiving a lucrative offer as chief executive officer of AngloGold Ashanti Ltd.
"My disappointment in watching from afar is to see both sides missing each other in almost every conversation," said Cutifani, who noted he has friends on both sides of the dispute.
"They are both yelling at each other so loudly, they are now deaf to each other's position."
Cutifani, an Australian who had worked in other countries, understood cultures and the importance of respecting them.
To him, they provided clues to how companies such as Inco worked and could perform better.
He arrived at Inco in 2003 and found Canadians democratic in nature and "very consensus driven." As president of Inco North America and Europe, and later Vale Inco's chief operating officer, he seized on those values to implement change.
Recognizing leadership shortfalls, Cutifani stressed the importance of management getting back in touch with employees and showing more respect. For openers, he took the door off his office.
Cutifani overhauled job tasks to generate maximum value from workers and machines; developed integrated planning processes so that each level added value to the next one and started targeting more investment for mines and operations to improve capabilities.
His fresh ideas empowered workers. The initiatives included programs such as "front-line planning and scheduling" (FLP&S) where crews shared decision making and gained more control in the workplace. At the same time, crews faced additional responsibility in reaching production targets.
"We were trying to introduce something more respectful and motivating for people," Cutifani said in an interview from South Africa.
The moves in Sudbury improved relations and productivity, but Cutifani knew the company still had a lot of work ahead. And Brazil's Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, which acquired Inco in 2006 for about $19.3 billion, didn't interfere with the strategy, he said.
One mine manager said many workers and supervisors embraced his ideas and changes that would help them and the company.
"There certainly was a need for change at Inco and a lot of people really liked it," said the manager, who requested anonymity in view of the escalating strike tensions. "But after Cutifani left, the stuff for the front lines in the mines wasn't really followed up.
"(Vale Inco) brought in something else that wasn't team oriented or all that efficient. It doesn't prompt people to share problems and deal with common issues. There is more mistrust now."
Without other executives pushing the same "game-changing" strategy, some initiatives drifted, according to insiders familiar with Vale Inco's operations. They said Vale Inco took a more aggressive approach in implementing change. Instead of "give and take," they said top executives expected lower-level managers and workers to take direction and "stand and deliver."
Consultations with the union dropped and labour relations deteriorated after Cutifano's departure. A stronger influence from the parent company in Brazil emerged. Other key Canadian managers left including Fred Stanford, the president of the company's Ontario operations, whom union leaders and staff regarded as "a people person."
In brainstorming sessions involving mine managers last June, a summary of discussions did not include any reference to the need for union participation.
"This was brainstorming with an astounding absence of brains," said an independent expert familiar with the bargaining after reading the summary.
"I saw no evidence of any attempt to inform or engage the union leadership in any planning."
There also didn't appear to be much thought in the summary about getting workers to support Vale Inco's goals in improving productivity and reducing costs after a strike.
Negotiations between the Steelworkers and Vale Inco for a new contract collapsed a few weeks later and the strike started last July 13, despite a union proposal to extend the existing pact for a year. Both sides accused each other of an unwillingness to bargain.
The key issues involved company demands to cut costs by reducing the potential payouts of a bonus incentive program; altering pension plans and giving management more flexibility in contracting out.
Vale quickly showed the strike would be different than any other walkout in its more than 50 years of labour strife. For the first time, the company resumed partial operations. It has gradually increased output with the intent of hitting full production soon with staff and replacement workers.
Vale, which was losing about $7 million a day in production earlier in the strike, has also spent heavily on monitoring picket lines.
The company has fired 10 workers and sued the union, its leaders and members for alleged property damage and threats involving picket line activity. It has taken the union to court to restrict pickets.
The union argues Vale is trying to provoke workers on picket lines in efforts to weaken union solidarity and community support. One former senior manager even went so far as to say the company had been "rubbing mud in the workers' faces."
Bargaining resumed with a special mediator during the past month but 88 per cent of workers, who are collecting $200 in weekly strike pay and suffering financially, voted against a five-year offer with minor improvements. The proportion opposed was higher than when the workers turned down an offer before the walkout eight months ago.
In view of the continuing wide gap in positions, the Steelworkers proposed binding arbitration to end the strike, but Vale said it would not allow a third party to decide how to run the company's business.
In a stinging public letter after the workers' rejection, Tito Martins, chief executive officer for Vale Inco, lashed out at the union for relying "heavily on a global campaign of misinformation, racism, intolerance and xenophobia to further its position in a country like Canada that prides itself as a model of multiculturalism."
"Make no mistake, this labour dispute is not about countries or nationalities," Martins said. "This is about clinging to years gone by and building for the years to come."
Leo Gerard, international president of the United Steelworkers and a former Inco smelter employee, said in his 40 years as a unionist, he has never seen a company behave like Vale in Sudbury in the pursuit of pushing workers into line with its other global operations where labour standards and pay are significantly lower.
"Let me tell you, if you want a collective agreement in Sudbury, you better change your global business model because you're not going to push us down to our knees," Gerard told about 4,000 people at a Sudbury rally earlier this week after reading Martins' letter.
Charlotte Yates, a professor of labour studies and political science at McMaster University in Hamilton, said although a clash of cultures is probably a factor in the dispute, she also sees it as a resource multinational company – susceptible to volatile commodity prices – taking an opportunity to bargain hard in a weak economy where workers feel vulnerable about their futures.
Yates said the Vale Inco fight has similarities to the ugly Giant Mine strike in the Northwest Territories during the early 1990s, when American-owned Royal Oak Mines took a tough stance, locked out employees and hired replacement workers. It culminated in the bombing deaths of nine replacement workers by a union member.
Some union leaders in Sudbury have warned that the strike is a "powder keg" waiting to explode.
Yates questioned why governments have generally remained silent and not taken a more active role in pressuring the two sides to settle the dispute because of the continuing economic damage.
She also said it appears the labour relations climate at Vale Inco is different than in many European countries where management has learned to work with unions rather than trying to antagonize them.
"I am note sure Vale Inco understands the implications of a long strike on labour relations and productivity over the long term," Yates added. "While the company may be paying a big price in Sudbury, the workers are also paying a big price financially. It will be impossible for them to recover financially, even if the union wins the strike."
Workers have each lost an average of more than $30,000 in net pay to date. Many of them have exhausted savings and some now regularly visit food banks for help.
Yates said it appears the labour movement in Canada, which has been in disarray for years, is waking up to the importance of making sure the strike does not turn into a major loss because defeat may encourage other large employers to follow similar paths. Sudbury has remained a stronghold of organized labour for generations.
Cutifano said the key is to talk constructively and find long term solutions for both sides.
"That was where we were always working toward and that is where I still hope they end up," he said. "Treating each other with dignity and respect goes both ways."

When Vale Inco attempts to bring “scabs” into Sudbury, the United Steelworkers union will push to have anti-scab legislation passed in the province, even if it means closing down Highway 401, the Steelworkers international president told those attending a rally at the Sudbury Arena March 22.

Leo Gerard was one of several thousand people who came out to support striking members of Steelworkers Local 6500 during the union's Bridging the Gap rally. They marched from the union's Brady Street hall to the Sudbury Arena, yelling raucous union chants.

The rally, which was attended by union leaders from across the country and around the world, was originally supposed to take place on the Paris Street bridge, but the venue was changed last week because of safety concerns over the location.

Gerard said the provincial NDP, with the help of the union, would bring in anti-scab legislation “even if we have to shut this whole goddamn province down.”

Provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath said anti-scab legislation need to be brought in by the province, and also said the province should be “doing something to get binding arbitration” so the Steelworkers can get back to work.

The union leader also took issue with a letter posted by Vale Inco president and CEO Tito Martins on one of the company's websites last week.

In the letter, Martins said the Steelworkers leadership has relied on “misinformation, racism,intolerance and xenophobia...to further its position in a country like Canada that prides itself as a model of multiculturalism.”

Standing with union leaders from around the world behind him, Gerard said he “resents from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head” being called racist.

“These are my sisters and brothers,” he said, referring to the union leaders behind him. “We have a global union. We don't resent our brothers and sisters. We resent the management causing this fight unnecessarily.”

Martins said in his letter that it's ironic that the Steelworkers have taken this position, given that it's an American union. Gerard said he is not foreign to Sudbury, as he grew up here, and was a member of Local 6500.

Gerard also addressed another statement in Martins' letter, which said “it appears name calling comes easier than negotiating.”

“Tito, come to Sudbury tomorrow, we're ready to negotiate. Come to Sudbury tomorrow, or shut your goddamn mouth,” he said.

Federal NDP leader Jack Layton was also among those who attended the rally.

He said multinational corporations around the world are watching the strike in Sudbury to see if Vale Inco can “beat the workers.”

“Well, I said it last September (at a previous rally in Sudbury), and I'll say it again. You picked the wrong union, and you picked the wrong town.”For the full story, read the Thursday edition of Northern Life.

Vale Inco is suing senior leaders of striking Steelworkers in Sudbury for $1 million because of the union's website and a controversial Facebook site.

The suit against the Steelworkers Local 6500, its president, John Fera, and two dozen other executives and members seeks financial damages and a court order forcing the union to stop posting on its websites "all pictures and information relating to, about or belonging to Vale Inco employees, contractors and security personnel."


Such information is endangering those individuals, the company alleges in the suit.

In addition, Vale Inco wants the court to allow it to "monitor the contents of all Facebook postings by the union and its members to ensure compliance with the order."

Vale Inco also asks the courts to order the union disclose the identity of an anonymous contributor to those sites who uses the name "John Doe."

"Doe's identity is known to the union and to the Strikeforce defendants," the claim states,

The suit contains allegations not proven in a court of law.

The union, which has just been served, has to yet file a statement of defence.

In a statement of claim filed in Sudbury court, Vale Inco alleges that starting in November, the union began "targeting Vale Inco employees who have exercised their legal right to return to work during the strike, as well as contractors and security personnel."

The lawsuit alleges the union and its members have published pictures and other personal detail about individuals on the internet and, "by doing so, they are arming their members with information, knowing and intending that it will be used to harass, intimidate, threaten and commit criminal and tortious (wrongful) acts against Vale Inco's employees, contracts and security personnel."

The statement of claim cites the union's website and the Facebook page, "Strikeforce 6500."

I write this personal opinion piece to all those with an interest in the labour dispute with Vale and its workers. I would like to express, on my own behalf, why I am on strike against Vale and still have a “fighting-spirit” even after these eight long months.

Once upon a time, with the huge jump in nickel prices of 2007, my bonus was aired publicly on the news and radio. Why this happened seems illogical, unless you look back at these events from today‘s perspective.

Deep feelings of resentment and bitterness was formed by many who heard nickel bonuses were higher than their own hourly wage. Even my own closest friends expected free suppers and beers out on the town because the local radio station just aired for the 12th time that day I got a bonus cheque. It pains me to see that, even today, these impressions remain in our community. When CVRD (Now Vale) bought Inco, suddenly everything about my employment became dirty laundry, strung out for the public to see. Looking back, these publicity stunts were just the start to Brazil’s public relations machine — and my nightmare.

Now looking beyond those great times and prior to the high nickel prices, I did not get a bonus. That was not aired publicly for the world to hear or read. During 2009, the sum of my bonuses was zero. Prior to 2006, my bonus cheques were less than a week’s wage. Why didn’t the local radio station say I made nothing for my bonuses?. Since the name change from CVRD to Vale INCO, Vale claimed Ontario operations as a loss, despite making record earnings. In consequence, profit sharing was cut to nothing.

Alas, the “out of the ordinary” high-bonuses became my legacy. Forever labelled as “spoiled or overpaid,” because of an unpredicted economic prosperity — however short-lived it might have been.

I made more in my last career choice, but came to “Mother Inco” for a secure future, a good pension, benefits, and some sense of a promise of a bright future through stability and the distinction and prominence Inco held. Inco offered to pay for future education costs, career development, and boundless opportunities for an eager worker willing to train in different fields.

By: Sudbury Northern Life Staff
The strike caused by Vale Inco’s refusal to negotiate for the last seven months regardless of the Steelworkers’ modest proposals, and their insistence on the imposition of their sub-standard global labour practices, will be remembered as an assault on Canadian workers, Canadian values and Canadian labour standards.

There are many “firsts” in this strike that have so many shaking their heads at Vale’s antics. The unusual continual barrage of anti-union pronouncements and unfounded criminal accusations against rank-and-file union members, Vale’s poison pen, full-page ads, their provocation, antagonism and intimidation aimed at sparking a reaction from angry strikers to further feed their union-busting efforts. And of course, their incomprehensible efforts to operate the mines, mill and smelter with unwilling but forced office and technical union members, frustrated management employees, and imported out-of-province and perhaps out-of-country scab workers. All of this, it appears, to try to weaken or break the union, rather than negotiate.

It is difficult to believe that their Sudbury operations spokesman, Steve Ball, and his vitriolic pronouncements, really represent a company as huge as Vale Inco and its parent company. Contrary to all the usual rules of seeking an amicable negotiated agreement, this solitary spokesman, and a small group of multiple-identity anti-union bloggers, continually publicly berate and belittle union members (their employees) while also attempting to divide the community.

Mr. Ball also publicly criticized fellow nickel producer Xstrata as a “slash and burn” operation. Surely, somewhere within Vale’s upper echelons there are more responsible executives who realize that it appears as if Vale is indeed “slashing and burning” its own operation, along with its reputation, labour relations, employee loyalty and future success in Sudbury and in Canada.

It seems that Mr. Ball and his local associates are angry with Xstrata for having the gall to be good corporate citizens who recognized the union’s reasonable proposals and negotiated a fair agreement. Even with a long history of the two mining companies having similar agreements, and Vale being much more profitable lately, Vale’s Steve Ball claims that the two companies are now different “business models” and they cannot follow suit.

What utter balderdash!

Mr. Ball’s highly publicized announcements of imaginary matte shipments to Clydach, Wales, which coincided with news of the Xstrata offer acceptance, probably has two spurious purposes. One is to further antagonize Steelworkers, his fellow employees, into a reaction that he could use to further inflame the situation and defame the union and its members.

Secondly, to try to make the community believe that Vale can operate without 3,300 production and maintenance employees, members of Local 6500 USW. He is not succeeding.

Posted By CAROL MULLIGAN THE SUDBURY STAR



Allowing replacement workers to do the work of striking employees is a recipe for disaster, charges Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas.

It's a path the Liberal government of Premier Dalton McGuinty began walking when it refused to support her party's "anti-scab" legislation, said the New Democrat MPP.

"Bringing scabs into a strike always leads to the same damned thing," said Gelinas at a rally with striking Steelworkers on Wednesday at the Copper Cliff Smelter Complex picket line.

"It always leads to violence. It always leads to desperate people doing desperate things," said the MPP. "Anybody who doesn't see this has their eyes closed shut."

Gelinas was joined at the rally by Nickel Belt MP Claude Gravelle, the federal NDP's mining critic, and Timmins-James Bay NDP MPP Gilles Bisson.

All lashed out at federal and provincial governments for refusing to help get Steelworkers and Vale Inco Ltd. negotiators back to the bargaining table.

Talks broke off in early July before about 3,200 Steelworkers in Sudbury and Port Colborne walked off the job July 13 over pensions, nickel bonuses and seniority transfer rights.

"When we have a government who turns down anti-scab legislation, they laid the path for whatever happens to happen and we all know where this leads to. When a member of Parliament (Sudbury Liberal MPP Rick Bartolucci) doesn't show up to support anti-scab legislation, he lays the path to what lays ahead," charged Gelinas. "None of this is good. Shame."

By Helder Marinho

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Vale SA, the world’s biggest iron- ore producer, said fourth-quarter profit rose less than analysts expected on increased expenses from the longest strike in the company’s history. Shares fell on the costs.

Fourth-quarter net income increased 11 percent to $1.52 billion, or 28 cents a share, from $1.37 billion, or 26 cents, in the year-earlier period, Rio de Janeiro-based Vale said yesterday in a regulatory filing. That is less than the 31 cents a share average of 13 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Iron-ore and nickel volumes declined during the quarter as falling Chinese demand for iron and strikes at nickel mines cut exports, JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst Rodolfo De Angele said in a note to clients. The strikes also boosted costs because of the expenses of restarting production, he said. Vale had a $236 million expense related to the nickel unit strike in Canada.

The company will likely recover after a “transition quarter” and “is still a solid value story,” said De Angele, who rates Vale “overweight.”

Vale declined 1.14 reais, or 2.7 percent, to 41.06 reais in Sao Paulo trading at 9:26 a.m. New York time.