[Newsbot]

Title: U.S. Steel to lock out Nanticoke, ON workers
Category: Business
Posted By: BeaverFever
Date: 2013-04-25 20:51:30
Canadian

[BeaverFever]

$1:

For the third time since it was allowed into Canada, U.S. Steel will lock out a portion of its Canadian workforce Sunday at 9 a.m. to back demands for contract concessions....

Lake Erie workers were previously locked out for eight months from August 2009 to April 2010 and Hamilton workers faced a similar situation from November 2010 to October 2011.

Those earlier lockouts were over company demands for sweeping changes to the pension plans. Those demands included the end of pension indexing for retirees and closing the defined benefit pension plan to new hires, pushing them instead into a defined contribution system.


When the Harper government allowed U.S. Steel to buy Stelco in 2007, it was supposed to result in a 'net benefit' for Canada, backed up by guarantees of jobs and production given by the company.

Critics such as Chris Charlton, NDP MP for Hamilton Mountain, wonder when Canada will ever see that 'net benefit.'

"Again, we're being shown that this purchase wasn't about allowing foreign investment to come in to benefit Canada; it was about a foreign predator buying market share,' she said.

The federal government took U.S. Steel to court in 2009, alleging it failed to live up to production and employment commitments it made when it bought Stelco for more than $1 billion in 2007.

The case was dropped when U.S. Steel agreed to keep operating in Hamilton and Nanticoke until at least 2015.

Par for the course....

[fifeboy]

$1:

When the Harper government allowed U.S. Steel to buy Stelco in 2007, it was supposed to result in a 'net benefit' for Canada, backed up by guarantees of jobs and production given by the company.

But still no hidden agenda...

[Thanos]

I was working for an American subsidiary once. When the transition phase of the takeover was finished, the management in Houston bagged all the Canadian executives and, oblivious to the needs of the Canadian market, ran everything from Texas. I was downsized within a year of the takeover and the company went under altogether within three years. This happened in 2004, when that great Liberal patriot and champion of Canadian jobs Jean Chretien was in charge. Maybe he could have done something about this sort of thing from happening, if he'd followed his 1993 promise to get rid of the free trade deal. But he didn't, just like his promise to get rid of the GST, and American takeover and blindly stupid mismanagement of too many Canadian companies became entrenched in our economy.

That's the way it is. Something could have been done about it twenty years ago. But it wasn't. This sort of thing didn't come into vogue for businesses under Stephen Harper. It's been going on since the 1980's and all the Liberal governments between Brian Mulroney and PM Harper did nothing to change it any more than the Conservatives have. Everyone's to blame on this, not just one man that you guys find it convenient to despise.

[BeaverFever]

Thanos Thanos:

I was working for an American subsidiary once. When the transition phase of the takeover was finished, the management in Houston bagged all the Canadian executives and, oblivious to the needs of the Canadian market, ran everything from Texas. I was downsized within a year of the takeover and the company went under altogether within three years. This happened in 2004, when that great Liberal patriot and champion of Canadian jobs Jean Chretien was in charge. Maybe he could have done something about this sort of thing from happening, if he'd followed his 1993 promise to get rid of the free trade deal. But he didn't, just like his promise to get rid of the GST, and American takeover and blindly stupid mismanagement of too many Canadian companies became entrenched in our economy.

That's the way it is. Something could have been done about it twenty years ago. But it wasn't. This sort of thing didn't come into vogue for businesses under Stephen Harper. It's been going on since the 1980's and all the Liberal governments between Brian Mulroney and PM Harper did nothing to change it any more than the Conservatives have. Everyone's to blame on this, not just one man that you guys find it convenient to despise.

Oh I don't disagree at all.

[raydan]

No complaining please... this is capitalism... you take the good with the bad.

[Lemmy]

$1:

A quarter century of free trade has transformed this country, but not in the way its champions hoped, or its critics feared.

Canada has not, as opponents predicted, become an economic appendage to the American giant, a 51st state in all but name, since the Canadian and American governments reached a comprehensive free-trade agreement. We are, if anything, a freer actor in the world than we were before the deal was signed, 25 years ago Thursday.

$1:

Yes, total American investment in Canada increased, to $326-billion in 2011 from $76-billion in 1988. But Canadian investment into the United States also grew, to $276 billion today from $55 billion before free trade.

Free trade was supposed to bankrupt uncompetitive businesses on both sides of the border. We've had as many successes, at the expense of American competition, as vice-versa, even without adjusting for the fact that we're a tenth their size.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/after-25-years-free-trade-deal-with-us-has-helped-canada-grow-up/article4576313/?page=all

[OnTheIce]

$1:

“Given that the Lake Erie wage rates are already significantly higher than the USW rates in the U.S., and that the plant continues to incur huge losses, the COLA provision must be modified,” the letter reads. “Future wage increases can be discussed as an independent issue in future contracts. No responsible management would do otherwise.”

So the choice was: Keep your job with the same pay and some structural changes, or go on strike asking for more when a company is losing money.

Fail.

Yet another union cancer.

[Lemmy]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Yet another union cancer.

Nice edit, Tarlek. How do you know the business' failure isn't management's fault? If management had their shit together, they'd be able to offer COLA to their workers, no?

[BeaverFever]

Well it was no secret what the employees were making when USW bought the plant in 2007. Why did they buy it in the first place if the wages were so unacceptable? And the fact that Canadian workers earn more than the US, where labourers have basically become indentured servants is irrelevant to me. Who cares if they're higher than in the US, if anything that should be an argument for raising the US wage, not lowering the Canadian one.

Huge losses aren't going to be magically reversed because of "some structural changes" to employee pay.

And once again, you outright lie to spin the facts: THEY ARE NOT GOING ON STRIKE, THEY WERE LOCKED OUT. Do you not know what that means? The Company refused to let them come in to work.

You know, for the record, I actually don't see anything majorly unreasonable with the concessions the company is asking for...they already stripped away pensions and everything else that matters to workers in their last 2 lockouts, now they're just picking up the easy wins. But when a US company buys up a Canadian one and locks out the workers 3 times in the next 6 years over concession demands, something is seriously wrong.

[Thanos]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Nice edit, Tarlek.

That's a quality insult right there. White shoes, a pink belt, and a sports coat that looks like it got made out of the same fabric on 1970's couch that belonged to a bingo-playing chain-smoking senior. When the time comes I'm going to try to use "Nessmann" on Andy.

[OnTheIce]

Lemmy Lemmy:

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Yet another union cancer.

Nice edit, Tarlek. How do you know the business' failure isn't management's fault? If management had their shit together, they'd be able to offer COLA to their workers, no?

Doesn't matter who's fault the business failure is, you can't change it now anyways and you don't ask for more when the company is in the red.

[Lemmy]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Doesn't matter who's fault the business failure is, you can't change it now anyways and you don't ask for more when the company is in the red.

Nice back-peddling. You said "union cancer". It's not union cancer when it's not the union's fault the business is failing. But facts have no place in your union-bashing pinhead. COLAs aren't "asking for more", they're "asking for the same".

[OnTheIce]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Nice back-peddling. You said "union cancer". It's not union cancer when it's not the union's fault the business is failing. But fact have no place in your union-bashing pinhead. COLAs aren't "asking for more", they're "asking for the same".

Not back peddling at all. Doesn't matter who's fault it is, the union is stupid pushing for more knowing the financial status of the company; hence "cancer".

You're not entitled to a COL increase and you're especially not entitled when your company is losing money.

Unions are becoming a cancer, advising their members poorly and using their members money for all sorts of BS.

[Zipperfish]

I wish those poor women and girls in Bangladesh had a union.