Mining Labour Issues and History – Sudbury and Global – Page 20

Eyes turn to Vale, Steel hearing – by Carol Muggigan (Sudbury Star – December 8, 2011)

December 8, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Ontario labour leaders will be watching Sudbury today when lawyers for Vale Ltd. and United Steelworkers present final arguments in a drawn-out complaint by the union to the Ontario Labour Relations Board.

Depending on the outcome, the result could “put a real chill on the collective bargaining process,” said McMaster University professor Wayne Lewchuk. USW complained to the board about the firing of nine members during the union’s bitter year-long strike against Vale from July 2009 to July 2010.

Vale dismissed the workers, one of whom retired after the strike, because of alleged misconduct on picket lines and in the community.

The union wants the labour board to order Vale to have the dismissals dealt with by a provincial arbitrator, said USW Local 6500 president Rick Bertrand.

Investigation continues at [Sudbury’s] Creighton Mine [seismic event] – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – November 28, 2011)

November 28, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Vale officials are expected to continue assessing the damage to Creighton Mine this week after a 3.2-magnitude seismic event that occurred about noon Friday. No employees were injured and were all immediately accounted for in refuge stations shortly after the event, said Vale spokeswoman Angie Robson.

Before releasing personnel from those refuge stations, affected areas were cleared for seismicity, according to Vale’s emergency protocol, Robson said Saturday. Employees who were working at the 7,200-level or lower did not return to surface until about 11:30 p.m. Friday.

Activity is being restricted below the 7,200-foot level and activity at the mine’s 6,800- foot level and above is continuing as usual, said Robson. Creighton has been mined for 100 years or more, said retired health and safety activist Homer Seguin.

Safety first at Xstrata – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – November 24, 2011)

November 24, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Xstrata Nickel made the decision Monday to halt production in Sudbury and take what it calls safety pauses at two mines to reverse an increasing injury rate at the operations.

Marc Boissoneault, vice-president of Xstrata Nickel’s Sudbury operations, said the decision to send home employees at Fraser and Nickel Rim South mines was “abrupt,” but it was necessary to uphold his company’s first value — health and safety above all.

Production and maintenance workers at Fraser Mine were sent home Monday and workers at Nickel Rim South had a four-hour talk on safety before they were sent home.

The union representing the workers, Mine Mill Local 598/C AW, said Tuesday its members were concerned because they didn’t know how long they would be off work or if they would be paid for scheduled shifts they didn’t work.

Xstrata gives [Sudbury] workers a time out – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – November 23, 2011)

November 23, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Hundreds of employees at Xstrata Nickel’s Fraser and Nickel Rim South mines were sent home from the job Monday for what the company is calling a “short safety pause” after an increase in safety-related incidents at the two operations. Mine Mill Local 598/CAW president Richard Paquin said about 300 workers at Fraser Mine have been told to think about safety for an “indefinite” period of time while the company devises a plan to make the mine safer.

About 250 employees at Nickel Rim South were sent home Monday after sitting through a four-hour safety talk, he said. While Paquin said he has no problem with Xstrata wanting to draft a plan to make its workplaces safer, the question is whether members will be paid for the unexpected time off. Union and Xstrata officials began talking Monday night and spent all day Tuesday discussing the issue, said Paquin.

He was waiting to hear from Xstrata today about whether it intends to pay members or not. The union has sought legal advice on the matter. Xstrata spokeswoman Yonaniko (Iyo) Grenon issued a brief statement Tuesday afternoon in response to questions from The Sudbury Star prompted by calls to the paper from union members about being sent home.

Longtime [Sudbury labour] activist dies at 89 – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – October 26, 2011)

October 26, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

Members of United Steelworkers Local 6500– and working people in Sudbury — owe a debt of gratitude to a man whom many of them have never met.

Gilbert “Gib” Gilchrist, a former senior staff representative for USW Local 6500 and a former president of the Sudbury & District Labour Council, died Monday in Gore Bay at age 89. Longtime friend and fellow labour activist Homer Seguin, 77, was deeply saddened to learn Tuesday about his friend’s death.

Seguin, a former USW staff representative and Local 6500 president, said he first met Gilchrist in 1964 when Seguin was a trustee with the union and Gilchrist arrived in Sudbury from Elliot Lake. Gilchrist was born near Spr ing Bay on Manitoulin Island, the youngest of nine children, on a farm his family homesteaded in 1883.

Sudbury in the 1960s – by Sudbury Star (Unknown Date)

September 5, 2016October 15, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

The 1960s were a period of tension and turmoil in Sudbury, with huge changes in local labour organizations. It was also a period of massive urban renewal and municipal restructuring.

When the decade opened, the entire mining industry workforce was represented by one union — the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. When the decade ended, the United Steelworkers Union had established itself as bargaining agent for Inco employees in Sudbury.

To mark its presence in the community, the union purchased the former Legion Hall at Frood Road and College Street. The building became the Steelworkers Hall.

It was also a time of increasing demand for nickel products throughout the world, helped in no small part by the war in Vietnam. Both of the community’s mining companies, Inco and Falconbridge, were expanding operations.

[Sudbury Union] 6500 wins labour ruling – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – October 11, 2011)

October 11, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

The Ontario Labour Relations Board has ruled that two Steelworkers pulled from a union committee investigating the June deaths of two Stobie miners be returned to work on the investigation.

United Steelworkers Local 6500 filed a complaint to the labour board after Vale Ltd. ordered two of five union committee members back to their jobs, charging the company was interfering in its investigation. It asked the Ministry of Labour to order the reinstatement of the members.

When it refused, the union went to the labour board, which made its ruling last week. The ministry is heading an investigation into the deaths of Jason Chenier, 35, and Jordan Fram, 26, on June 8. They were crushed by a run of broken rock and water while working in the No. 7 ore pass of the mine’s 3,000-foot level about 10:30 p.m.

Vale is conducting its own investigation into the deaths, as are Steelworkers and Greater Sudbury Police.

Broken promises and impotent government hurt Hamilton [Steel Industry] – by Tim Harper (Toronto Star – October 10, 2011)

October 10, 2011

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

OTTAWA – A grim anniversary passed unmarked last week in a once-proud steel town. It was one year ago that Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel began its shutdown of the blast furnace at the former Stelco in Hamilton, a precursor to its lockout of 900 workers a month later.

One year later, the workers remain on the street and the 2007 U.S. Steel purchase of Stelco remains the neon sign advertising the inadequacies of a toothless and secretive Investment Canada Act.

U.S. Steel is now threatening a permanent shutdown at its Hamilton Works and the federal government, which allowed the takeover, is powerless to do anything about it.

The two sides return to the bargaining table Monday morning, but there appears to have been little movement from either the American company or Local 1005 of the United Steelworkers.

Judges rule against Vale application – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – October 8, 2011)

October 8, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

Three Toronto judges denied an application Friday by Vale Ltd. for a judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision on how evidence is being presented at a bad-faith bargaining complaint by United Steelworkers against the company.

Vale asked divisional court of the Superior Court of Justice to scrap eight days of hearings already held into the complaint and start over again with a new panel from the labour board, says USW lawyer Brian Shell.

The complaint was filed Jan. 13, 2010, at the halfway mark of a bitter year-long strike against Vale. It began as an attempt to force Vale back to the negotiating table when contract talks were stalemated.

That complaint has turned into a fight to have an arbitrator appointed to rule on the dismissals of eight Steelworkers, whom Vale said were fired for unacceptable behaviour on picket lines and in the community during the labour dispute.

Anti-scab law touted [by Sudbury NDP candidate] – by Laura Stricker (Sudbury Star – September 29, 2011)

September 29, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

The NDP will continue the fight to ban replacement workers during strikes and lockouts, Paul Loewenberg says. The NDP candidate for Sudbury spent an hour answering reader questions Wednesday afternoon in an electronic town hall.

“We are the only party in Ontario that has ever passed anti-replacement worker legislation and it is important that we bring it back,” he said. In April, Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas’ bill to ban replacement workers died on the second reading.

Loewenberg also fielded questions about student debt, jobs, health care and the LHINs (local health integration networks).

Vale interferes: Union prez – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – September 19, 2011)

September 19, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

The president of United Steelworkers Local 6500 says Vale Ltd. is interfering in the union’s investigation into the June 8 deaths of two members at Stobie Mine.

Jason Chenier, 35, and Jordan Fram, 26, were working at the mine’s 3,000-foot level about 10:30 p.m. when they were struck and killed by a run of broken rock and water.

In the past, the union and the former company owner, Inco, conducted joint investigations into mining deaths. But Local 6500 and Vale were unable to agree from the outset about this investigation, so each is conducting its own.

Local 6500 president Rick Bertrand accused Vale of interference because it recalled to work two of five members of the union investigation team.

[Labour fatalities] ‘We have lost far too many’- by Laura Stricker (Sudbury Star – September 6, 2011)

September 6, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

This year, the Sudbury and District Labour Council did something a little different for Labour Day. Breaking from tradition of its usual Labour Day parade in downtown Sudbury, the council instead honoured a prominent figure in the fight for workers’ rights.

On Monday, the Leo Gerard Workers’ Memorial Park in Val Caron officially opened. Gerard, a Sudbury native, is international president of United Steelworkers.

“We have far too many people who have lost their lives on the job,” said Deputy Mayor Ron Dupuis, who came up with the idea for the park. “I know that there are family members here in the crowd that have lost loved ones. We just want you to know that they will not be forgotten.

Be Not Afraid of Greatness or Sudbury: A Cosmic Accident – by Kenneth Hayes (Part 2 of 2)

August 27, 2011August 27, 2011

Sudbury-born Kenneth Hayes currently teaches architectural history at the University of Toronto.

This essay was commissioned by the Musagetes Foundation on the occasion of the Musagetes Sudbury Cafe. It appears in the book Sudbury: Life in a Northern Town / Sudbury: au nord de notre vie.

Musagetes is a private foundation based in Guelph, Ontario which seeks to transform contemporary life by working with artists, cultural mediators, public intellectuals and other partners to develop new approaches to building community and culture.

Kenneth Hayes – Be Not Afraid of Greatness or Sudbury: A Cosmic Accident (Part 2 of 2)

Sudbury’s development displays some of these features in their later, more advanced forms. The “I” in Inco’s name proclaimed the venture international, but the dominant company in the exploitation of Sudbury’s ore reserves was essentially American. Inco may nominally have been based in Toronto, but Canada’s role in this relationship was at best that of junior partner in a kind of corporate suzerainty.

Falconbridge, the newer and smaller corporation in Sudbury, generally enjoyed a better reputation than Inco, but it was not that different. In fact, the rivalry between Inco and Falconbridge over the course of the twentieth century often had the unreal air of a duopoly — the minimum diversity required to maintain the appearance of open competition while colluding for the same ends. (11) In the last decade, Inco and Falconbridge were purchased, respectively, by the giant mining corporations Vale, from Brazil, and Xstrata, from Switzerland. This situation is still regarded (not without some degree of xenophobia) as abnormal, but the truth is that Sudbury has never really ruled itself.

Understandably, diversification has been Sudbury’s cultural and economic mandate in recent decades. Fuelled by the North’s long-standing regionalist grievances, the city went through a phase of public investment that resulted in the creation of the Taxation Data Centre, Science North and improved health-care and educational facilities, but there are now signs that vigorous private initiative is rising from the thrall of the mines, and doing so in Sudbury’s own inimitable way.

Be Not Afraid of Greatness or Sudbury: A Cosmic Accident – by Kenneth Hayes (Part 1 of 2)

August 27, 2011August 27, 2011

Sudbury-born Kenneth Hayes currently teaches architectural history at the University of Toronto.

Kenneth Hayes – Be Not Afraid of Greatness or Sudbury: A Cosmic Accident (Part 1 of 2)

Sudbury is not ugly, as the old “moonscape” slur has it, nor is it beautiful, as its boosters claim, pointing to the city’s many lakes. At once awesome and terrible, harsh and majestic, Sudbury lies beyond the register of ugly and beautiful. The place can only be described as sublime, for Sudbury is a phenomenon as much as it is a city.

This status is revealed by the fundamental confusion about its name, which never makes clear what is nominated: the city itself, the larger region, the Sudbury Basin on which the city is perched, the fact of the mines, or even the reputation of the place. Without proper limits, one signifier encompasses all of these identities.

Sudbury is, in the final analysis, the slow unfolding of a cosmic accident. The nickel ore that fuelled the city’s development was deposited in a vast cataclysm, the impact of a meteorite that would have destroyed all life on earth — had there been any. But this occurred so long ago that life did not yet exist on earth. (1) The shock was so great that seismologists can still detect its faint reverberation — planet Earth literally quivers with the pangs of Sudbury’s birth.

Widows taking on Vale – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – August 2, 2011)

August 2, 2011

The Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

It’s not a sexy issue, but United Steelworkers’ J.P. Mrochek hopes to get candidates in the Oct. 6 provincial election talking about the need to change legislation affecting the survivors’ pensions of hundreds of Ontario widows. Two are the widows of members of USW Local 6500 in Sudbury, men who worked for Inco Ltd. for decades.

Marie-Rose Arbour’s husband, Lionel, died May 10, 2010, from lung cancer. The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board approved Arbour’s application for compensation and later survivor benefits for his widow, agreeing his cancer death was related to working in the sintering plant.

The plant operated for 15 years, refining semi-pure nickel into pure nickel, and is deemed responsible for hundreds of cases of lung and nasal cancers among workers. Former USW Local 6500 president Homer Seguin told The Sudbury Star in May 2006, a worker’s rate of contracting lung cancer doubled after one month in the sintering plant. After a decade, they were 13,000 times more likely to get nasal cancer.

Vale Ltd., the new owner of Inco, appealed the WSIB’s approval of Arbour’s claim.