I've been a little preoccupied lately...

It has been a little while since I have had the time to post anything to this site and to be honest I've had other issues to deal with, such as complete knee replacement surgery on both knees since early January. This was very successful in both instances. Also, since retiring from the normal day to day stresses of the Union, I have been dealing with things like my garden. That being said, I cannot completely divest myself of my former interests in organized labour and the politics that impacts the daily lives of working people. In order to keep some of the information on this page current, I have added a newsfeed at the bottom of the sidebar on the left from Labourstart.

Also, my former Local has completed their elections after a runoff was required. I would like to congratulate Richard and Anne Marie in their successful campaigns and wish them success in their new positions, (it goes without saying that they will need all of the help they can get in these times.)

Follow this link to the Sudbury Star:

http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1591779

And this for the full election results at Mine Mill/CAW - Local 598:

http://www.minemill598.com/elections/2009-election-results.html

Progressive Links To Labour and the Economy

The following links are to progressive articles you need to read if you want to get a grip on what is happening in the current economic mess we are in, and why some things have become "lightning rod" issues in the main stream media.

Cutting versus Building - Jim Stanford

Don’t Take Away MY Defined Benefit Pension! - Jim Stanford

Corporations blame unions for economic meltdown - Linda McQuaig

Financial elite have no shame - Linda McQuaig

Canada's Vital Auto Industry: Past, Present and Future - James Laxer

Public services a bargain for Canadians: Study - Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Canadians get more public services than they pay for -Melanie Ogilvie and Ish Theilheimer

What the labour movement means to me? - Brandon Fox

ARE UNIONS OBSOLETE? - Don Wells

This is Privateering - George Lakoff

The Job Losses Continue

According to Harper, there is nothing to be concerning to Canadians in the current economic downturn. Call it what you will: Cyclical Downturn, Structural Recession, etc. Whatever the current government wishes to call it, they don't seem to understand that this is having a devastating effect on the working people of this country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBxSWRvhQPw

If you still have a job, do yourself a favour, ignore all of the union bashing that is going on in the media, and if you are not yet organized, find a union, and protect yourself. If you are in an organized environment, attend your meetings, and support your union. Don't join the race to the economic bottom.

Cats Maintain, "All is Well in Mousland"

In a report from the CBC today, “Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday the country is in a mild recession and that Canada will come out of it strongly.” This appears to be yet another instance of the federal government trying to convince Canadians that they have managed the economy well and that we have nothing to fear. These comments are as credible as Stephen Harper's claims as recently as last October Canada could still avoid a recession. These comments seem to indicate a disconnect on the part of the government with the realities being experienced by the people of Canada. In February the economy experienced a loss of 110,900 full time jobs, 35,000 of these losses were in Flaherty's home province of Ontario. Clearly he is not listening to the daily reports in the media of continuing job cuts: Stelco in Hamilton, 1,500 jobs in March, Bombardier, 3,000 job losses announced on April 2nd, as examples. The suffering by Canadian workers continues. The actions of the Federal Government can only be likened to Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

“Earlier this week, Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney told an audience in Yellowknife that growth may not return until 2010. He said Wednesday that Canada's economic contraction in the first quarter of 2009 now appears likely to be the worst on record since 1961.”, (http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/04/03/flaherty-jobs-london.html). So who are Canadians to believe, the Bank of Canada, or the Finance Minister? Someone either does not have all of the facts, or is attempting to mislead the populace.

It is time for Canadians to take control of their futures and to become politically active. The economic problems that have been laid at the feet of the working class are the result of massive deregulation of the financial systems worldwide. The following link although old is more timely than ever and should be required reading for anyone who is of voting age in this country.

http://www.tommydouglas.ca/mouseland

We Have the Strongest Banks in the World, but...

This morning started as a typical April day. The morning breakfast television show on CHCH predicted rain showers for most of the day. Since I am recovering from recent knee replacement surgery, I decided to put off my morning walk until later on in the afternoon. Typically, I scanned the cable television directory to see what I could watch to fill the morning. I found a movie called, “Maxed Out”, which documents the history of the current financial, and debt crisis we find ourselves in. I watched this and can I recommend this to anyone who thinks that we are doing okay and the real issues are only in the U.S. During the documentary, I got a couple of wrong number calls from someone who was wondering if the food bank was going to be open today? These rapidly brought the economic situation closer to home and made me think how real this crisis really is.

I thought back to the morning show I had watched, where the lead news story was Stephen Harper's attendance in London at the G20 conference where he is patting himself on the back for the strength of the banking industry in this country. A situation in which he fails to admit that he has had no hand in implementing. Our PM takes pride in being a trained economist. What most people don't take into account is that he is firmly in the camp of Milton Friedman, and the Chicago School of Economics, and if he had ever achieved sufficient power, would have deregulated our financial industry in order to follow the models of the US, British, and Icelandic systems.

On that same morning show, the newscast another of the lead stories was the closure of yet another manufacturing plant in the Niagara area. This one was a non-unionized auto parts supplier. As a result 180 people have lost incomes and will because they were not organized not be getting any sort of severance package to help them survive.

The job losses and subsequent suffering in this area are severe yet, because they are happening on an almost daily basis, and in such numbers, people, unless they are personally impacted are not taking notice of what is happening around them. On Sunday I stopped to talk to my neighbour down the street. I knew of the closure of the Stelco plant here, but was not aware of his story. He had 29 years of seniority and is 50 years old. His wife also worked for Stelco by has been off work for some months and was getting only the odd shift of relief when they were short-handed. Between them they had over 50 years of service with Stelco. They are not going to get a pension for their service. They have two children about to finish grade school. He drives a 1992 Oldsmobile. What are they going to do?

Stephen Harper and Tony Clement, and Jim Flaherty aren't going to be there to provide any assistance to people like my neighbours, or the poor fellow who was wondering if the food bank was going to be open today. In times like these, people look to the federal government for leadership and help. From where I sit here in Hamilton, there is little in the way of leadership, or help from either of the senior levels of government. Who, if anybody is going to step up and offer the people of this country a lifeline? The government of the day is clearly not up to the task.

Xstrata Layoffs, Update

Below is a link, updating the Xstrata layoff story at their Sudbury based nickel mining operations. Mine Mill/CAW - Local 598 has negotiated a deal with the employer that provides an additional sixteen weeks of pay for those workers facing layoff. This deal in effect recognizes the clause in Xstrata's original purchase agreement of Falconbridge Ltd. where the purchaser agreed to provide job security for the production and maintenance workers for a period of three years. That clause remains in effect until June 2009.

For those who feel that Union's have no place in today's business environment, look hard at this deal. Without the active and continuing pressure from the Union, the company would have simply walked away from their commitment to job security. This was an issue that the Union took on and won. Tony Clement and the Federal Government gave up on the people of Sudbury. Union's are needed in these times of economic uncertainty more than ever.

Company's in this country do not exist in a vacuum. They are not built on the efforts of a single individual or group. In order to remain in business they rely on all sorts of taxpayer funded services from the education of their workforce to transportation, policing, medical services etc. All of these externalized services would be cost centres for their businesses if not for the taxpayers. As such business has an obligation to the job security of its workers. It is clear that the current government does not feel that it is their place to protect the workers in this country. The workers will have to step up and organize to protect themselves. Unions are there to help.

http://www.sudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1435294

Also read the article in Northern Life for more information. The Union has also posted a summary of the agreement on their website.

Update from the Sudbury Star, February 15/09

Xstrata Layoffs in Sudbury - Half of Workforce

I learned today that my former employer has announced a major cutback in production at their Sudbury mining operations. Xstrata Nickel, (formerly Falconbridge Ltd.) has decided to close all but one of their mining operations and reduce shifts in the Strathcona Mill. All of this will mean the loss of 686 permanent, full time jobs. It amounts to appoximately half of the Mine Mill – CAW, Local 598 Bargaining Unit. If anyone doubts the severity of the current economic downturn, this is yet another wake-up call. For a city the size of Sudbury, this is clearly a devastating blow, particularly in light of the fact that each one of these jobs has allowed the creation of at least four spin-off jobs in the region.

During my career, my family and I managed to survive through a number of layoffs, and temporary production shut-downs. The difference was that these downturns always had a temporary feel about them, this one feels like a more permanent scenario.

During my dealings with the company over the years, the company always took great pains to indicate that Falconbridge was essentially an economic house of cards, (regardless of who the owners were at the time). The company carried a debt load, that they apportioned to the various producing mines, (distributable costs), and took pains to insure that it was understood that if any unit fell off the table, so to speak, and had to be closed, the remaining mines would have to make up the slack. It appears as though Xstrata has decided that the older operations are not going to viable in light of the current nickel prices and is going to put all of their eggs in one basket, Nickel Rim South. This property is close to becoming a producing mine, and once in production will without doubt be a high volume, low cost producer. The ore zone has relatively high grades and lends itself to bulk mining methods. This will mean a small workforce going forward, especially as the development phase nears completion.

The announcement by Tony Clement in todays National Post that the company has agreed to invest several hundred million in development of Sudbury Operations, in lieu of living up to no layoff clause in the purchase agreement they made when Xstrata took over Falconbridge looks to me to be little more than smoke and mirrors. This is money they likely planned to spend to rush the one remaining mine into full production. They still have the debt load that they had when they took over Falconbridge as well as the debt they incurred for the takeover from Noranda. They will need to generate cash-flow quickly and Nickel Rim South is now the only game left in town. In my opinion, they have not committed any money that they didn't plan to invest with, or without allowing Tony Clement to make an announcement.

In the future, it is possible that the company will expand again once the price of nickel rebounds and the current recession begins to turn around. There will likely be new mines opening at Fraser-Morgan and Onaping Depth, but these are likely to be quite some time in the future.

In the short term, those people affected by these cutbacks need help. The EI system must be made more user friendly, wait times need to be eliminated, and the time frame for eligibility needs to be extended to at least 52 weeks. Further, Xstrata needs to open up its books and indicate to the Union what its future plans are in the Sudbury District. Over the course of my career with Falconbridge, they showed a disturbing tendency to pull a new discovery and mine out of the hat when times seemed darkest. After the layoffs in 1978, Fraser Mine appeared. When #5 Shaft went down, Craig Mine was announced. After the tough market conditions of the late 1980's, Bill James announced Thayer Lyndsley. Is Xstrata going to follow in the footsteps of previous Falconbridge management and pull another rabbit out of the hat, or is the cupboard in the Sudbury Basin finally bare?