| Rio Tinto's arrogance knows no bounds. The company is thoroughly exposed in Alma, in Quebec, across Canada and around the world as a self-serving behemoth which gets electricity for free, rapes the land and labour wherever it operates and devastates the communities left in its wake. It does not give a damn about its workers who create all the wealth for Rio Tinto Alcan. But when it comes to crying about "needing" to remain competitive, or threatening countries that it is going to pull up stakes if governments do not give more concessions on power and other demands, it has crocodile tears to spare. At the Shareholders' meeting in London, England on April 19, CEO Tom Albanese refused to permit Alma union president Marc Maltais to speak, or the representatives of the community who had traveled all the way from Utah, USA, or the representatives of the super ill-treated workers who traveled all the way from Papua New Guinea and the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in Mongolia. In his arrogance, Albanese repeated the litany that Rio Tinto has very good labour relations everywhere (except in Alma), which is an outright fabrication. (Way to Go, Alma!) Now the company is isolated and exposed. It is even faced with 250,000 people in Quebec who agree with the Alma workers that the resources belong to the people and the people should get to decide what happens to them. Under these circumstances, Albanese and Rio Tinto Alcan's CEO Jacynthe Côté are making noises that they are willing to return to the bargaining table soon. A settlement is possible providing the talks are "reasonable," they were quoted in media reports. Does this mean they are going to be reasonable, the workers want to know? Workers' demands have been reasonable since the get go. In fact, their only demand is that the jobs which create the wealth should be protected union jobs, not open to subcontracting. The company's position is to guarantee current jobs, but not those lost through attrition. All those jobs, which means all future jobs, it wants to subcontract, which means at first two-tier wages, two-tier working conditions, and then nothing but low wages and unprotected working conditions. In other words, Rio Tinto Alcan wants unfettered monopoly right, unfettered so-called management rights and this is not reasonable at all. To even apply the word reasonable to this demand is irrational. Of course, the company sees nothing but dollar signs in front of its eyes, not people with hearts and minds and the tremendous talent it takes to produce, innovate and move forward by opening a path for society to move forward. To the way of thinking of the working people, proposals to go back to feudal times when workers were serfs and indentured labour, and had to pay tithes to the church as well as to the government, and local authorities dictated what they were and were not allowed to do, calling them sinners if they dared to express a thought of their own -- those days are gone. We don't know what world Tom Albanese and Jacynthe Côté think they live in, or Jean Charest and Stephen Harper, but it is not a desirable world; it is not a sustainable world; it is not the world which represents the interests of the people of Quebec or Canada or anywhere else. The workers and their families not only in Alma, Quebec, not only in all of Quebec and all of Canada, but all over the world, are very clear about this! The last time the Alma union and Rio Tinto Alcan spoke was on April 6 and the company negotiators walked out after just a little more than one hour. Even though there was an agreement not to speak to the media during negotiations, they started spouting accusations against the union. Like crazy people who do not know the meaning of words, they accused the union of using blackmail and committing aggression against the monopoly with its demands to restrict subcontracting and guarantee minimum levels of employment. At that time RTA's head negotiator said no bargaining would take place for the foreseeable future. This show of frustration and expression of arrogance and craziness did not win the company any favour. Despite this, the Rio Tinto executives now say they want to have talks with the Alma union once again. They have not learned that it is they who are in the wrong, not the union. Very well. But will they stop repeating all the lies and disinformation they have been throwing at the workers to deny RTA's responsibility to negotiate in good faith? We hope so. The Rio Tinto executives have a great self-image which may sound fine in the boardrooms where they vie for position with others of like kind, but it does not look very good "on the ground." They huff and puff that they are "wise" and "reasonable" and "know what is happening in the world" and "only have the best interests of the workers in mind." They portray the workers as country bumpkins who know nothing of what is happening in the world or what's good for them! They claim the company is reasonable because it came to these negotiations with no new demands and would gladly live with basically the same contract and that it is just the workers' intransigence on the issue of subcontracting that blocks a settlement. The truth of the matter is that some things that were not an issue in the prior period have now become a big issue and the workers need to defend their interests. Rio Tinto Alcan does not need to make new demands in the contract for subcontracting because every day the company acts with impunity and dictates the working conditions on the shop floor. Maintenance jobs in anode production, electrolysis and metal casting, jobs at the potlines maintenance centre and in the office are routinely being transformed from union jobs with protections won over decades of struggles, to precarious contracted-out non-union jobs with radically inferior conditions. It has been very difficult for the union to restrict this regressive transformation of jobs at the plant because of the understanding which informs the labour code, and thus all labour contracts, that anything that is not tied down with contract language is a "management right." It is therefore reasonable for the union to use the occasion of the renewal of the contract to introduce contract language which restricts RTA's ability to change working conditions with impunity and restrict its so-called management rights. It is not only reasonable but imperative that the union do so. At this time, the company is on a declared mission to lower wages and deprive the workers of union protection under the capital-centred hoax that workers are "costs" of production. It says these "costs" must be eliminated in order to improve the company's rate of return. In other words the company's raison d'etre is to benefit its private shareholders, not the common good, which is fine but that is not the raison d'etre of the workers. Their private interests are not in contradiction with the common good but in fact make the common good possible. Besides this, by negotiations it is understood that a mutually beneficial arrangement must be the aim. The workers want to work, but not as slaves! If the company thinks it can produce wealth for the private interests it represents with slave labour, then it is living in Lalaland. The company knows very well that its logic is not "reasonable" but in fact irrational. Workers produce the wealth; they are not "costs of production." The fact that we all depend on society to meet our needs, means that it also stands to reason that we should all be socially responsible towards that society, towards how it is organized and how we use our resources and spend the common wealth we all create. Just as the members of society are not liabilities to that society but its very raison d'etre, so too workers are not liabilities for companies but their greatest assets. Take the example of a family. Does a family not consider its children to be its greatest assets? Of course it does. Imagine looking at them as burdens and declaring that the family will thrive if it gets rid of the family members! Would one even consider it "reasonable" to have such a discussion? Of course not. Why then does Rio Tinto Alcan fancy that it can spout nonsense about being "reasonable" when it refuses to provide its workers with secure conditions of work and life? The issue in these negotiations is the same as it is today all across the country and the world. The company must stop its arrogant repetition of idiocy and settle down to negotiate in good faith. The workers' demands in these negotiations reflect their direct experience with Rio Tinto's attempts to act with impunity. It is not reasonable for a company to think it can act with impunity. It must negotiate the conditions under which it is reasonable for the workers to work. Because the company cannot justify its position on reasonable grounds, it resorts to name calling. It calls the workers' opposition to unfettered management rights on the issue of subcontracting "unrealistic," "job killer," "rigid," something that does not exist and cannot exist anywhere. The company will not even permit a rational discussion on the workers' proposal for a flexible arrangement that establishes a ratio between the number of workers in the bargaining unit and the production output in terms of tonnage of aluminum produced in a year. The company distorts the content of the demand claiming, for example, that the workers want the company to guarantee 900 jobs even though there are only 778 union members. The union's real demand is to recover for its members the jobs lost to subcontracting and provide them with the same working conditions the other workers have. Rio Tinto Alcan's claim that granting a minimum level of employment is impossible under neoliberal globalization is an admission that the capital-centred anti-human system it espouses does not work and that another system is necessary. Refusal to recognize the human factor/social consciousness is not an option. But the company's aim is to divert attention from its Achilles Heel, the fact that it makes its superprofits because of the hydro privileges and now it wants to make even more by converting the workers into enslaved labour. The fact is that the workers have hit the nail on the head with their banner which points out that this phony lockout is subsidized by the government. Their argument that in return for hydro privileges, RTA must at the very least provide minimum employment levels with decent conditions, merits attention. This is what the people of the entire region asked the Charest government to do when it allowed Rio Tinto to seize control of Alcan in 2007. But this government refused to do that. Instead it signed a secret deal with Rio Tinto and Hydro Quebec that hands over the people's hydroelectricity to the monopoly, even allowing it to organize a phony lockout so as to declare a phony force majeure and make money from the sale of hydro while aluminum prices are pushed up. Rio Tinto, the Charest government and the monopoly-controlled media present the workers' demands as unrealistic. They claim that as a result of neoliberal globalization, the people's demand for sovereignty over their resources, way of life, culture and traditions, is finished. Today the law of the jungle must prevail and that is the end of the story, they say. The workers "have no choice" but to buckle under. But 250,000 Quebeckers this weekend said No! Our Resources, Our Decision! The demand for minimum levels of employment is not only an economic demand to protect livelihoods and working conditions. It is not only a very just economic demand in itself; it is also a political demand directed at global monopolies and governments. The monopolies which operate in Quebec must abide by strict conditions whereby private monopoly interest must be subordinate to the public interest. This is the case for everyone else's private interests -- why not those of the monopolies? The Charest government will not answer this question. It arrogantly says there is nothing it can do. When it comes to the youth, it simply sanctions police violence and calls people names. The monopolies cannot be allowed to use the people's resources unless they meet their social responsibilities enforced by governments. Rio Tinto Alcan workers are firm in their resolve not to let the company and the Charest government get away with their anti-social agenda. RTA should restart the negotiations and it should negotiate the Alma union's proposal in good faith. The demand for the government of Quebec to stop subsidizing this phony lockout is more urgent than ever. It is quite possible the illegitimate secret deal is illegal. It is certainly an act of great irresponsibility for the government to declare that when the secret deal was negotiated it did not consider the possibility of a lockout. Well, the company did which is why it is written there. It is quite possible it can be proven in court that the company planned the lockout for self-serving reasons and that it can be found to be in contempt of the spirit of the labour code for that reason. This could provide just cause for the government to declare the secret deal null and void. But, where there is no will, there is no way. The government should answer for this. Whatever legal recourse the workers might have, one thing is for sure. The lockout is phony. The lockout is subsidized by the government. It is a phony government subsidized lockout. The government is in contempt of its social and legal responsibility to the people of Quebec to make sure the resources of the people are used to benefit the people. It is corrupt. It is not worthy of the people's trust. It must cancel the secret deal. It must stop subsidizing this phony lockout and Rio Tinto Alcan must be brought to its senses. End the Phony Government Subsidized lockout! Rio Tinto Alcan Must Negotiate in Good Faith! |