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Brazilian Miner Vale Plans to Eliminate 500 Jobs in Thompson, Manitoba by 2015 — A Third of its Local Workforce – by John Barker

Vale's Thompson, Manitoba Operations - Photo by Jeanette Kimball

This article was originally published in the Thompson Citizen which was established in June 1960. The Citizen covers the City of Thompson and Nickel Belt Region of Northern Manitoba. The city has a population of about 13,500 residents while the regional population is more than 40,000.

Thompson NDP MLA Steve Ashton denounces Vale’s ‘arrogance’ in blistering words

November 17, 2010 – BY JOHN BARKER
EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET

Brazilian mining giant Vale said today it plans to phase out its smelting and refinery operations at Manitoba Operations by 2015, eliminating 500 jobs or a third of its local workforce, and focus on “developing new sources of ore as it transitions its operations to mining and milling….”

Vale dropped Inco from its name May 27 and its global nickel business is simply known now as Vale. It had operated around the world as Vale Inco since Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) re-branded itself less than three years ago on Nov. 29, 2007. “Vale” is pronounced (vah-lay) and literally means “valley” in Portuguese.

In a blistering “MLA Report” weekly column filed today at noon that will appear in print in Friday’s Nickel Belt News, Steve Ashton, Thompson NDP MLA and minister of infrastructure and transportation, as well as the minister responsible for emergency measures and the minister charged with the administration of the Manitoba Lotteries Corporation Act, says “Vale’s announcement that they are eliminating the surface operation here in Thompson is unacceptable.”

Ashton is the longest serving MLA in the Manitoba legislature, first elected 29 years ago today in the Nov. 17, 1981 provincial election. He is second in order of cabinet precedence to Premier Greg Selinger.

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Vale News Release – VALE OUTLINES INVESTMENT PLANS FOR CANADIAN OPERATIONS

In Excess of $10B Over Five Years

For immediate release

November 17, 2010 — Vale today revealed its blueprint for the future in Canada anchored by a planned five year investment program in excess of $10 billion to strengthen and expand its Canadian operations.

“The investment program we’re pursuing is an indicator of the bright future we see for Vale in Canada,” said
Tito Martins, Chief Executive Officer of Vale Canada and Executive Director, Base Metals for Vale. “These
investments represent an important building block for the future of our Canadian operations. The dollars
invested here will improve environmental performance, unlock new market opportunities, increase efficiencies and strengthen our global competitiveness for years to come.”

Large-scale investments have already commenced and will continue to ramp-up in 2011, said Mr. Martins,
noting that in addition to the direct benefits accrued to Vale’s operations, the projects promise to generate
significant economic opportunities for communities and suppliers over the next five years.

The five-year investment program combines recently started projects with projects yet to begin. It follows a
comprehensive review of Vale’s Canadian operations that addressed issues of efficiencies, aging
infrastructure, environmental performance and creating a long-term sustainable future. Key components of the investment program include:

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Vale Contributes $525,000 to National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation for Launch of Innovative Mining Education Module

John Pollesel, COO Vale Canada and Director for Base Metals Operations, North Atlantic Region; Roberta Jamieson, President and CEO (NAAF)

November 12, 2010 – Sudbury — The National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation (NAAF), in partnership with Vale, launched a mining education curriculum module designed to inspire Aboriginal students to pursue careers in the mining industry. The launch event took place today at the N’Swakamok Native Alternative School at the Sudbury Friendship Centre.

As part of the launch, Vale announced a $525,000 contribution to NAAF to support the ongoing evolution of the program. The funds will support the research, development, design, DVD production and initial distribution of the module.

The innovative curriculum includes informative, relevant material that is being made accessible to high school teachers seeking to inspire students about possible career options in the mining sector.

“The Foundation’s partnership with Vale is invaluable. Together we are providing Aboriginal high school students with a unique opportunity to see what their future could be if they decide to pursue a career in the mining industry,” said Roberta Jamieson, President and CEO of the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation. “By showcasing fantastic role models and providing key information, our youth are being inspired to recognize their full potential. Thank you Vale for your vision and commitment!”

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John Pollesel, Vale Canada COO and Director for Base Metal Operations North Atlantic, Speech to Sudbury Chamber of Commerce – October 13, 2010 – Sudbury, Ontario

John Pollesel, Vale Canada COO and Director for Base Metals North Atlantic

John Pollesel is the Director for Base Metal Operations North Atlantic and Chief Operating Officer for Vale Canada, reporting to Tito Martins, Executive Director Base Metals and Vale Canada Chief Executive Officer.

John Pollsel has extensive management experience, specializing in the mining industry where he has been employed for more than 20 years. He joined Vale in August of 2008 in the capacity of VP Sustainability and Business Services for the Ontario Operations and in July of 2009 was promoted to the role of VP Production Services and Support for the Canada/UK region and General Manager for Ontario Operations.

Mr. Pollesel is a Fellow of the Society of Management Accountants of Ontario and a Certified Management Accountant. He graduated from Laurentian University with a Masters degree in Business Administration and holds an Honors BA in Accounting from the University of Waterloo.

Our objective is to create a sustainable, profitable and long-term operation in Sudbury – contributing further decades of employment, economic growth and community support. There is an important caveat, however. We must demonstrate our willingness and ability to become a more productive and efficient operation. Aspiring to the status quo is simply no longer an option. – John Pollesel, Sudbury, Ont.

CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

Thank you, and good evening everyone. It’s a pleasure to have been invited to speak to you at your Chamber’s Annual General Meeting.

Vale is a proud member of the Chamber of Commerce and we’ve been active on the Chamber’s Board for many years. In fact, personally I was proud to have sat as a Board member a few years back.

Vale and the Chamber have enjoyed a very long and productive relationship together…the Chamber has been there for us during some tough times, and we’ve been there for the Chamber as an active partner on a number of fronts. It’s a beneficial and productive partnership that we look forward to continuing.

I want to especially recognize Debbi Nicholson, who has been an exemplary leader of the Chamber for more than 30 years.

Debbi – you lead with dignity, good business sense and a keen awareness of what is best for our community. I congratulate you and your team on all the things you’ve accomplished throughout your long tenure with the Greater Sudbury Chamber.

* * * * *

Tonight, I am here to speak to you about Vale and our future in the Sudbury Basin.

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Canada’s Business News Network (BNN) Profiles the World-Class Sudbury Mining Basin – Stan Sudol

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant, who writes extensively about mining issues.(stan.sudol@republicofmining.com) Toronto-based Business News Network (BNN) is a Canadian cable television specialty channel owned by CTVglobalmedia. BNN airs business and financial programming and analysis. You can’t go anywhere in Toronto’s financial district without seeing BNN broadcasting on television screens. On September 17, 2010, …

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Vale Voisey’s Bay Workers Still On Strike – by Darren Cove, President, USW, Local 9508

Originally published August 2, 2010

Last week, Newfoundland and Labrador – and scores of our working families – were saddled with a dubious Canadian distinction, the result of a foreign corporation’s aggressive and unprecedented anti-labour agenda.

The mining strike at Voisey’s Bay, provoked last summer by Brazil-based corporate giant Vale, entered its second year on Sunday, Aug. 1. The strike has become the longest-ever labour dispute in the century-long history of former Inco Ltd. mining operations in Canada.

Perhaps most disturbing is the fact this dispute is being prolonged by Vale’s second-class treatment of Newfoundland and Labrador workers compared to Vale employees elsewhere in Canada.

Our union, United Steelworkers Local 9508, has offered to settle the Voisey’s Bay strike by accepting the same deal Vale reached last month with its employees in Ontario. But Vale is attempting to dictate that workers in our province — including many aboriginal employees — accept a lesser contract, with inferior bonuses and benefits, compared to the Ontario settlement.

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Vale Still Bitter Over Year-Long Sudbury Mining Strike – by John Fera

John Fera is the president of United Steelworkers Local 6500. He is retiring on August 1, 2010.

While United Steelworkers in Sudbury and Port Colborne are returning to work, it will take considerable time for many in our communities to overcome the pain and hardship of the year-long strike against Vale.

Indeed, over the last couple of weeks there has been consensus from all corners that it is essential for Vale to build respectful and productive relationships with its Canadian workers and their communities.

In this light, it is profoundly disappointing to see Vale’s top executives going out of their way to make public statements that show no interest in fostering trust, goodwill and respect with workers.

Vale’s CEO Roger Agnelli claims the strike was so prolonged because “the United Steelworkers has a long record of conflicts and strikes.” Well, I’m sorry Mr. Agnelli but the USW has been representing the miners in these communities for generations and in Vale’s first negotiations it has managed to extend their strike to more that 100 days longer than the longest ever strike at Inco.

Contracts for good wages, pensions and benefits typically have resulted from hard-nosed negotiations, short strikes and goodwill, until this unprecedented aggressive Vale approach.

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Canada and Sudbury are Very Important to Vale – by Vale CEO Roger Agnelli

Roger Agnelli - CEO ValeThe end of the strike that lasted nearly a year at Vale’s operations in Ontario, Canada, is very significant for our company, as we have overcome yet another challenge. Besides making our Canadian employees’ pension and variable pay regime more similar to the successful system already in place in other countries, the deal removes restrictions and interference in managing the company, thereby aligning our operational efficiency in Canada with our practices elsewhere.

“We are talking about returning management power to supervisors, for example, enabling them to do their work at the operational level in a more appropriate manner in order to achieve their objectives and ensure the safety of their team members, assuming responsibility for management and pursuing innovation,” said Vale’s CEO, Roger Agnelli, in an exclusive interview with Vale News (July 16, 2010). Read the full interview below.

“Canada is important for Vale and Vale is important for Canada. Our partnership is for the long term.” – Roger Agnelli

1) What are the main changes resulting from the approved collective agreement in Ontario?

The most important points that we agreed to are a defined contribution pension plan for new employees, variable pay based on performance and the removal of restrictions and interference in managing the company. In these three areas, we have simply aligned Sudbury and Port Colborne with the successful system that exists in other countries where we operate.

This issue about interference in management is very important, not only for me, as CEO, or for the executive director. We are talking about returning management power to supervisors, for example, enabling them to do their work at the operational level in a more appropriate manner in order to achieve their objectives and ensure the safety and efficiency of their team members. And we are also talking about further developing a meritocratic system. With this new variable pay plan, employees will be rewarded for the results they produce rather than just changes in the nickel price.

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Ensuring Sudbury Mining History Doesn’t Repeat Itself – by Claude Gravelle

Claude Gravelle is the Member of Parliament for Nickel Belt and the NDP’s Mining Critic. This column was published in the July 20, 2010 edition of Northern Life 

Earlier this month, we all breathed a sigh of relief as USW members ratified a new five-year agreement with Vale.

These workers deserve to be commended for their efforts. Their families, friends and neighbours also deserve to be commended for supporting them throughout this very difficult time. Having visited the Steel Hall regularly, I can attest to the generosity of community members and business owners who made significant contributions to the workers’ food bank for almost a year.

However, many workers lost their vehicles, homes and savings. Some families even fell apart. We cannot understate the impact this strike has had on so many people. We all know small and independent businesses throughout Greater Sudbury that also paid a price for this strike.

As an Inco employee, I lived through the previous record-holding strike of 1978-1979. It’s hard not to feel that history repeats itself sometimes. But this shouldn’t stop us from trying to move forward in way that prevents such devastating events from happening again.

And while much has been said and written about this strike, more analysis and reflection is both welcome and necessary. We need to look at the conditions that led to the strike, and the conditions that contributed to its longevity.

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The Vale Inco Stike of 2009-2010 Leaves a Bitter Legacy in Sudbury (16 Tons and What Do You Get?)- by Michael Atkins

Michael Atkins is the president of Laurentian Media Group matkins@laurentianmedia.com This column was published in the July 20, 2010 edition of Northern Life

The column was originally titled “16 Tons and What Do You Get” but was changed for web searches.

“Sixteen Tons” is a song about the life of a coal miner, first recorded in 1946 by American country singer Merle Travis and released on his box set album Folk Songs of the Hills the following year. A 1955 version recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford reached number one in the Billboard charts, while another version by Frankie Laine was released only in the United Kingdom, where it gave Ford’s version some stiff competition. Travis claimed authorship of the song, but a competing claim was made by George S. Davis.  (wiki)

Long strikes get forgotten everywhere except where they happen. Sometimes they get forgotten before they are over. The United Steelworker/Vale Inco fight to the finish this year had many twists and turns, some of them quite surprising. It will not soon be forgotten.

It became clear by mid-winter it was hopeless to try to introduce common sense. It was a strike over principal and neither party was prepared to give up their principal until they had won or had no choice.

It was an epic battle. To think that, after a year off work, and with tens of millions of dollars lost by the company, and the union suffering indignity after indignity (particularly the settlement of a sister union whose workers, in part, were doing the work of strikers), it took an eleventh-hour nudge (or was it an ultimatum) by the provincial Minister of Labour to get an agreement from both parties to refer their last issue (nine fired workers) to the Ontario Labour Relations Board for a decision.

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Tentative Deal May End Year-Long Vale Strike With Sudbury Nickel Miners – by Marilyn Scales

Marilyn Scales is a field editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication. She is one of Canada’s most senior mining commentators.

Vale and the 3,000-plus striking members of Steelworkers Local 6500 have finally hammered out a deal that may end a 51-week-long strike in Sudbury, ON. Union members are voting today and tomorrow (July 7-8) on a new five-year contract, and observers are optimistic.

The strike fuelled strong rhetoric from both sides. There were charges of not negotiating in good faith. There were arguments over picket line protocol. There were allegations of strikers being injured on the picket line. There were calls for government ministers to intercede. Vale replaced strikers with other workers on its payroll so that partial production could resume. There were suspicions that the company was out to bust the union. Negotiations broke off for lengthy periods. Both parties took their complaints to the courts. It took a mediator to reach the new deal.

The cost to the community was great. With over 3,000 workers on the picket line, Sudbury Mayor John Rodriguez was quoted as saying the city missed the spending power represented by a $4 million payroll for each week the strike continued.

Families broke up, homes were forfeit and a spike in suicides was reported.

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The Arrogance of Inco – by Val Ross (Originally Published in May 1979 – Part 4 of 4)

“The Arrogance of Inco” was originally published as the cover story in the May, 1979 issue of Canadian Business. Reporter Val Ross, who died in 2008, spent two and a half months researching and writing this lengthy expose of the then Inco Limited. It has become a “classic must read” for anyone wishing to understand the often bitter history between Sudbury and the company that defined the Canadian mining industry.

4-Troubles in the Province of Ontario

Nineteen hundred and fifteen was a rather wet year in the Sudbury district. The sulphur dioxide fumes from the open-air roasting heaps hung in sickening mists and low clouds over the region. In increasing numbers the local farmers brought damage suits against the nickel producers, Mond and International Nickel. In desperation the nickel companies turned to the Ontario Ministry of Lands, Forests and Mines for protection. They begged the government to remember nickel’s contribution to the defence of the Empire (this was the year before the Deutschland’s two trips to pick up nickel supplies for Germany).

Charging opportunism, they protested, “Lands are being taken up and a pretence of farming made…in the hope and the expectation that the same may be damaged or appear to be damaged so that a claim against the company may be made.”

The Ontario government agreed with the nickel men’s interpretation of events and dealt with the “smoke farmers,” as Inco dubbed the victims, accordingly. Whole townships near Copper Cliff and Sudbury were withdrawn from sale to settlers. When the remaining lots changed hands, “smoke easement clauses” were written in which denied the buyers the right to sue mining companies. These clauses, reviewed in 1942 during another spate of farmers’ and residents’ complaints, have been retained. To this day, no owner of Sudbury real estate has the right to sue mining companies for property damage.

There were, and remain, variants on the sulphur dioxide pollution problems in the Sudbury area.

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The Arrogance of Inco – by Val Ross (Originally Published in May 1979 – Part 3 of 4)

“The Arrogance of Inco” was originally published as the cover story in the May, 1979 issue of Canadian Business. Reporter Val Ross, who died in 2008, spent two and a half months researching and writing this lengthy expose of the then Inco Limited. It has become a “classic must read” for anyone wishing to understand the often bitter history between Sudbury and the company that defined the Canadian mining industry.

3-Foreign Wars, Foreign Conquests

World War One boosted International Nickel up fortune’s wheel. The demands of World War Two and the Cold War arms race would put the company over the top – and heading down.

In the second half of the century Inco reaped the consequences of what it had sowed in the first the demand it had created for nickel ultimately exceeded its capacity to produce it – and left a vacuum for new producers to fill. Its booming good health attracted envy from customers, who might, had Inco been less arrogant, have felt more loyalty to the company when the chips were down; and it also attracted the critical attention of governments, consumer groups and environmentalists.

No one foresaw this, of course. The company’s chairman and president during World War Two, Robert Crooks Stanley, the man who’d spent four decades of his life convincing the world of nickel’s place in civilian life, made the necessary adjustments to war in a spirit of confident responsibility. “The first obligation of every corporation,” he noted serenely, “is to give the utmost support to his [sic] government in the prosecution of the war.” He plowed $38.5 million of the company’s money into boosting production by 20% and expanding the Huntington rolling mill facilities. Just as in World War One, the company nearly doubled its nickel output. But to do so it sacrificed costs, efficiency and profits, which dropped from $37 million in 1939 to $25 million in 1945.

Meanwhile, Stanley’s friend and fellow board member, John Foster Dulles, was creating a niche for himself in the postwar world. Dulles chaired the corporate heavyweight Committee for a Just and Durable Peace sponsored by the National Council of Churches of Christ in America; advised the American delegation at the United Nations conference, and made more and more friends with the Republican party establishment. It must have seemed to the board of directors that the company’s postwar position would surely be enhanced by friends with such political power.

They were wrong.

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The Arrogance of Inco – by Val Ross (Originally Published in May 1979 – Part 2 of 4)

“The Arrogance of Inco” was originally published as the cover story in the May, 1979 issue of Canadian Business. Reporter Val Ross, who died in 2008, spent two and a half months researching and writing this lengthy expose of the then Inco Limited. It has become a “classic must read” for anyone wishing to understand the often bitter history between Sudbury and the company that defined the Canadian mining industry.

2-The Monopoly Years

Whether the 20th century would belong to Canada, as Laurier had promised, was anybody’s guess, but it was clear from the start that it would have a place for the nickel from Canada.

No one was under the illusion that its control wasn’t solidly in American hands. The International Nickel Company’s chief executives were American, its refining operations were located in America, and so were its marketing policymakers.

When, in 1890, US Navy tests demonstrated that nickel-steel plate was impervious to shells fired at a velocity of 1,700 feet per second, the Glasgow Herald prophesized the dawn of a new age. “When irresistible nickel-plated breach loader confronts the impenetrable nickel-plated ironclad [vehicle], then…war as a fine art will have come to an end.”

On the contrary, nickel flourished in war-making and war-making flourished with the help of nickel. The Spanish-American War of 1898 demonstrated the invincibility of US nickel-steel-plated ships. Soon nickel was almost entirely a military material. Demand for it quickened in the dreadnought-building races between the Great Powers. Then, in 1914, the guns of war sounded, and nickel boomed. Between 1914 and 1918, the output of the Sudbury area mines more than doubled.

How awkward when it was learned in the middle of the war that some of this product was destined for German guns!

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The Arrogance of Inco – by Val Ross (Originally Published in May 1979 – Part 1 of 4)

“The Arrogance of Inco” was originally published as the cover story in the May, 1979 issue of Canadian Business. Reporter Val Ross, who died in 2008, spent two and a half months researching and writing this lengthy expose of the then Inco Limited. It has become a “classic must read” for anyone wishing to understand the often bitter history between Sudbury and the company that defined the Canadian mining industry.

A century of power and profit – and now a sea of troubles

NICKEL, INCO. Clack the consonants of these two words on your tongue, and they sound similar. They used to be synonymous – nickel, Inco – in the public mind undoubtedly, in the company’s mind, indelibly.

The International nickel Co. (it was renamed Inco Ltd. In 1976) was in up to its elbows at the birth of the nickel industry, almost as responsible for nickel’s development as nickel was responsible for making Inco Ltd. the billion-dollar multinational empire it is today. Inco was nickel. And the company men and the metal left their characteristic mark on each other’s fate.

The metal, element 28, is greyish-white. You might describe the company’s subdued, Anglo-Saxon character in the same way. Among the metal’s most important properties are resistance to oxidization and corrosion, and insolubility in water. Alone, nickel us brittle, but it merges promiscuously with iron and other metals into a host of tough alloys. The company is tough too, resistant to change, at times rigid. And the men of Inco have forged some odd business and political alliances to increase their company’s strength and lustre.

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