Anti-Vale graffiti scribbled on rock cuts

karrie

OogedyBoogedy
Jan 6, 2007
27,780
285
83
bliss
Give up my worker solidarity principles, screw my neighbour and have money? Which did Jesus say was the ticket to heaven again?


screwing your neighbour to have money applies just as well to some of the bull**** I've seen unions pull. The men who own and operate those mines are 'your neighbours' too don't forget. Tanking a business because you don't feel you've taken a big enough bite of their profits, screws you, your neighbour, your fellow union guy, AND the neighbour who you were striking against. All in the name of coin. Union leaders are every bit as evil and willing to screw their fellow man as the company man is.
 

lone wolf

Grossly Underrated
Nov 25, 2006
32,493
212
63
In the bush near Sudbury
What 6500 isn't taking into consideration is Vale can just as easily close down Sudbury operations. There is better quality and cheaper to mine material in Voiseys Bay. It wouldn't be the first union to bitch itself right out of existence. Union leadership will do fine. They look out for their own. Paperworkers in Sturgeon Falls can tell you what it's like to march on a picket line while plant equipment is being trucked away. There just aren't enough McDonalds or telemarketers to hire them.

FNX isn't striking, but is closed too because their staff have to cross Vale picket lines on the shared road.
 
Last edited:

Risus

Genius
May 24, 2006
5,373
25
38
Toronto
the only good union is 2020
There is no such thing as a good union...

I wouldn't want to work with a scab.

Why did production drop if cheap scabs are doing the work?

Why not Canada? Because Canada is rapidly turning fascist. Germany can't go back down that road until a lot of wounds heal.
'Scabs' gotta eat to, If you don't like it, too bad...
 

bobnoorduyn

Council Member
Nov 26, 2008
2,262
28
48
Mountain Veiw County
The police are required to be neutral. They don't take any side other than the law's. Threatening harm to another is illegal.

Yeah, in a perfect world maybe, but believe me, police are not always neutral, it's only human to take one side or the other, and nine times out of ten it won't be the side you're on. BTW, my cousin's boy got hired on with the Sudbury police last year, maybe I should ask what his feelings are. Ummm, maybe I don't want to know.8O

Your family member never realized he would be called a scab for being a scab? That wasn't well thought out was it?

"Scab" gets tossed around quite freely here. I think Johnny said his brother works for an electrical company and is contracted to Vale, or did I miss something. In any case, if he is not protected by the union, not a union member, and not doing replacement work for striking union members, doing the same job he was before, and recieves no benefit or protection by the union, he cannot be called a scab. If union members strike against a company and non union employees that are not laid off and are required to work, cannot be called scabs. They can be summarily fired, legally, and have no support or protection from a union they don't belong to. Union members who call such people scabs and treat them as much are the ones who give unions a bad name.

I know a number of scabs, some were replacement workers, some stayed working while the rest of us were locked out, some even went on local radio to proclaim they wold still work if the rest of us walked off. These are scabs, and there is no such thing is "was a scab", it is a moniker that stays for life, and deservedly so. Put the label where it belongs.

If unions would remember that a strike is a dispute between labour and the employer, not against the employer's customers, non union employees, or the general publlic, they might garner a lot more public support.
 

taxslave

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 25, 2008
36,362
4,340
113
Vancouver Island
If mining is the good life why do miners die young? Is there a job more dangerous?

Miners should make double what they do now.

If you are against someone being paid fairly and want heads cracked then you are a fascist or a sociopath.

A sociopath can be cured with medication and cognative skills training but the only cure for fascism is 2.09 grams of lead @ 1320 meters per second.

Miners already make $70000 plus a year plus benefits. How much more do you think they are worth.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
117,209
14,249
113
Low Earth Orbit
Miners already make $70000 plus a year plus benefits. How much more do you think they are worth.
When the miners get a raise the entire town gets a raise. Vale is sitting on the finest ore in the world, at current it pays for them to not be in full operation because the market is flooded with cheap pig nickle. Sudbury would have been hit with lay-offs anyway and those still working still wouldn't have settled on a new contract.

If anyone has something to bitch about it is the pig nickle that is complete crap that is ending up in the products we buy from foreign market that use this crap.

If the profits of Canadian business stayed in Canada none of us would be buying crappy imported poisonous retail goods.

Is that the fault of the miners or the unions?
 

Machjo

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 19, 2004
17,878
61
48
Ottawa, ON
When the miners get a raise the entire town gets a raise. Vale is sitting on the finest ore in the world, at current it pays for them to not be in full operation because the market is flooded with cheap pig nickle. Sudbury would have been hit with lay-offs anyway and those still working still wouldn't have settled on a new contract.

If anyone has something to bitch about it is the pig nickle that is complete crap that is ending up in the products we buy from foreign market that use this crap.

If the profits of Canadian business stayed in Canada none of us would be buying crappy imported poisonous retail goods.

Is that the fault of the miners or the unions?

... or the company packs up an leaves.A low income family may have no choice but to buy cheaper imported products. So you'll deny them that opportunity and bankrupt them?
 

lone wolf

Grossly Underrated
Nov 25, 2006
32,493
212
63
In the bush near Sudbury
... or the company packs up an leaves.A low income family may have no choice but to buy cheaper imported products. So you'll deny them that opportunity and bankrupt them?
An often-heard response around Sudbury would be: as long as the 6500 gang get ATVs and new pick-up trucks? Yes. When the miners get a raise, prices go up - FOR EVERYBODY - just like the company store. They can afford it. Minimum-wage earners, pensioners and anyone down on their luck can't.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
117,209
14,249
113
Low Earth Orbit
LOL do you think they'll pick up and leave the sweetest ore body with an incredible infrastructure and workforce making one of the most efficient mines on the planet?

Some know the price of everything but the value of nothing. The miners know what they are sitting on and what their labour for decades has accomplished in that city.

When the miners get a raise, prices go up - FOR EVERYBODY - just like the company store. They can afford it. Minimum-wage earners, pensioners and anyone down on their luck can't.
What do they do during lay offs and shut downs? Lower prices?

What do the cities secondary business do when cheap Indonesian pig nickle floods the market and causes those shut downs and lay offs? How does anyone including the miners survive? Bake sales?

I asked before is it the miners and the unions fauilt Indonesian pig nickle has flooded the market?

Yes or no?
 

Tonington

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 27, 2006
15,441
150
63
And Johnny does ahve a point about the alcohol. I'd like to see statistics on teetotaler miner death rates compared to drinking minor death rates, and then compare those to teetotalers among the rest of the population and drinkers among the rest of the population to be fair.

You can blame your work environment for certain medical ailments indeed, in which case the solution is not higher income but more safety gear to protect against those elements in the first place. If the only interest is raising wages, then clearly they're not serious about their health.

But you certainly cannot blame the environment for the worker's drinking, unless of course the employer tolerates alcohol consumption on the job?

It occurs to me that illnesses associated with the working environment in mines is wholly different than the illnesses associated with chronic alcoholism.

Just sayin.....
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
117,209
14,249
113
Low Earth Orbit
It occurs to me that illnesses associated with the working environment in mines is wholly different than the illnesses associated with chronic alcoholism.

Just sayin.....
Heavy metal isn't just old men screaming on stage, it's old men screaming in pain and wives screaming in anguish.

What planet do you live on? Is there a raise involved? How often do prices EVER go down?
Mineral markets not going down? Be glad you don't live in an aluminum mining town right now. Ask someone from Iceland what they think of investing their future in aluminum.

If you don't understand global markets then you'll never understand what is happening in Sudbury.
 

lone wolf

Grossly Underrated
Nov 25, 2006
32,493
212
63
In the bush near Sudbury
Heavy metal isn't just old men screaming on stage, it's old men screaming in pain and wives screaming in anguish.

Mineral markets not going down? Be glad you don't live in an aluminum mining town right now. Ask someone from Iceland what they think of investing their future in aluminum.

If you don't understand global markets then you'll never understand what is happening in Sudbury.
I understand greed and militant behaviour and that's what is happening in Sudbury. 6500 whined because Vale settled in Brazil without concessions. Would they work for a Brazillian workers' rate of pay?
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
117,209
14,249
113
Low Earth Orbit
Miners already make $70000 plus a year plus benefits. How much more do you think they are worth.
Maybe they should go build refineries AB and SK or mine in YT NWT NT and make $120,000?

$70,000 is a lot of money? Geeeees. Where th hell have you been?
 

lone wolf

Grossly Underrated
Nov 25, 2006
32,493
212
63
In the bush near Sudbury
Maybe they should go build refineries AB and SK or mine in YT NWT NT and make $120,000?

$70,000 is a lot of money? Geeeees. Where th hell have you been?

I don't know about anyone else, but I get by (for now) on just around $12000/yr disability - and I worked for the Province when I was disabled on-the-job.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
117,209
14,249
113
Low Earth Orbit
Read up on what is around the corner for the entire community of Sudbury concerning pig nickel and what Vale is waiting when it comes to settling.

Ask yourself this: Who would look worse to you? Miners for striking or Vale cutting jobs and lay offs anyway. Which would the news use to keep selling spots to advertisers? Both?

This was from lastnight: Sudbury safe from nickel pig iron ' threat&#39

What is their risk of being tossed by a firehose into the bottom bead of a truck bed?
Ever seen what happens to a jumbo operator after a collapse?