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.
Somewhere out there, just ahead of the blackflies is a small group of people across Northern Ontario knocking on doors looking to sign up enough people to bring the Northern Ontario Heritage Party (NOHP) back to life.
If you have any gray hair at all you will remember Ed Deibel tried to win some seats with the same party and many of the same ideas some 35 years ago. His effort brought no seats, but it did have an impact. Back then the objective was to separate provincial status. The current objective seems less clear.
It is no accident the province currently administers a $100-million investment fund called the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC). You can thank Ed. It is no accident the province of Ontario set up the original Ministry of Northern Affairs and Development in the shadow of the Heritage Party so many years ago and appointed the first minster, Leo Bernier, from Hudson, just down the road from Sioux Lookout. Leo was a staple on the rubber chicken circuit in Northern Ontario for years. He had a great passion for the North, but was ineffective when it came to actually getting anything done. He had no clout. Read the rest of this entry »
I remember chairing a meeting of an economic self-help group in Sudbury 30 years ago called Sudbury 2001. We were at the Cambrian College boardroom and a group of union members and politicians burst into the room to bust up the meeting. We were in about month eight of the last debilitating, vengeful, violent, desperate conflict between Inco and its union, and Sudbury was not only suffering through the strike, they were suffering through the knowledge of massive layoffs on the way. In those days there were 20,000 or so Steelworkers, not 3,000.
The interlopers were livid that David Patterson, president of the Steelworkers Local 6500, would sit at the same table as an Inco executive during the strike. You see, Sudbury 2001 was a community group. We all swore to leave our politics at the door, no matter how dismaying the conflict. David stood up; pushing and shoving, screaming and yelling ensued. When David came back in, and the uninvited guests retreated, the meeting reconvened. Read the rest of this entry »
Michael Atkins is president of Northern Life and sits on the Board of Governors of Laurentian University
“Growthnot” is a term for the much-hyped, once-upon-a-time Northern Ontario Growth Plan promoted by the province, which has been diligently crisscrossing the north interviewing, caucusing, conferencing, engaging with, and otherwise teasing northerners about a new beginning in economic planning for northern Ontario.
The plan would feature bringing together and aligning many ministries of the province to attack the disastrous economic conditions in the north. The first announcement of significance to affect the north came from the co-chair of the Northern Ontario Growth Plan, George Smitherman, who is also deputy premier of Ontario and Minister of Energy and Infrastructure. He announced an infrastructure investment in a mining innovation centre at the University of Toronto, which competes with the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) at Laurentian University.
“FedNot” is a term for FedNor — the once proud and (some might say) cocky federal economic development organization that stands humiliated by its minister and mocked by Sudbury Liberal MPP Rick Bartolucci (we must credit him for the FedNot moniker) for refusing to invest in CEMI.
Northern Life, Greater Sudbury’s community newspaper, gave Republic of Mining.com permission to post Michael Atkin’s column. www.northernlife.ca
Last month, I wrote about the hollowing out of Northern Ontario and the continuing deterioration of authority, influence and relevance in key sectors.
The topic of the day was the destruction of CBC Radio as a connecting force in the North and the ignorance of the people who made the decision to save such piddling amounts of money in the shadow of such benefit.
This month another storyline.
Vale Inco is restructuring. They are taking people in the finance, human resources and procurement departments and moving the strategic thinking and execution out of Sudbury and down to São Paulo and Toronto. In simple terms, it means that local procurement (say rock bolts) will remain in Sudbury but worldwide purchasing (say tires and information technology) will be done elsewhere. It means that the analysis of the business will move from Sudbury to São Paulo.
Northern Life, Greater Sudbury’s community newspaper, gave Republic of Mining.com permission to post Michael Atkin’s column. www.northernlife.ca
Michael Atkins
Buzz Hargrove, the feisty (I’m being kind) president of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union, recently said they would go on strike against General Motors (GM) if the auto maker did not promise new car products for Windsor, Oshawa, and St. Catharines, Ontario. A few days later, he changed his tune completely.
“You strike after something you think is achievable,” he said. “If we thought there was a product out there that we could strike and fight and win, then you can bet your boots we would be striking over it.”
Of course, what happened between the ultimatum and the climb down was that GM announced unceremoniously it would close a transmission plant in Windsor, whether the union liked it or not. Buzz is now negotiating severance packages, not new jobs.
Northern Life, Greater Sudbury’s community newspaper, gave Republic of Mining.com permission to post Michael Atkin’s column. www.northernlife.ca
Michael Atkins
If you have even a passing interest in the politics of northern Ontario, and Sudbury in particular, you will take note of last week’s refusal by FedNor to support the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) at Laurentian University and weep.
The message came from a PR flake in Toronto or Ottawa (it doesn’t really matter where) who was kind enough to point out that it “would not serve to maximize FedNor’s priorities of promoting growth, economic diversification, job creating and sustainable, self-reliant communities in northern Ontario.
Of course, and the tooth fairy henceforth is declining visits to our children on the grounds it no longer fits her mandate.
You will note this piffle did not come from the Sudbury office. It didn’t come from the Sudbury office because the Sudbury office was involved in helping to imagine this project from the beginning and has supported it strongly.
In fact this decision has nothing to do with the merits of the project, pro or con.
A month or so ago, a special task force for the Greater City of Sudbury called the Advisory Panel on Municipal Mining Revenues presented their recommendations to the city.
The committee was struck to review the astonishing inequities between the amount of mining tax money skimmed off the top by the provincial and federal governments, as opposed to the falling revenue for the city. This is not a new idea. The panel puts it in perspective.
In 1964, the mayor of Sudbury, at the time, struck a committee to investigate Sudbury’s financial problems and came up with a report entitled “1964; Year of the Dilemma.” The major theme was the lack of assessment available to the city from the mining industry.
In 1967, the Ontario Committee on Taxation went at it with a draft proposal that Sudbury would receive even less money. Read the rest of this entry »
