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DEVCO OCCUPATION: NOTHING T0 LOSE!
(This article is from the Jan. 16-31/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
Special to People's Voice
AS WE GO TO PRESS, Devco miners in Cape Breton are occupying the Prince Mine, tools are down at all Devco worksites, and road blockades are up at coal-generating Nova Scotia Power and Light. Spouses and community are mobilizing to give mineworkers all-out support in this battle to put the needs of people ahead of Ottawa's corporate plans to shutdown and privatize one of the oldest mining operations in Canada.
Ten miners went deep into the slope of the Prince mine on Jan. 9, after a week long wild-cat strike by 1,600 mineworkers - fighting for jobs and a decent compensation package at closed mine sites - was answered by Devco with a threat to close the Prince mine as well as the Phalen mine. Devco also issued 300 new layoff notices, won an injunction and a back to work order, and filed a claim for undisclosed damages against the United Mine Workers of America.
At least 1,100 workers are expected to lose their jobs in the closures, with 500 or fewer left to work - or not - in the about-to-be-sold Prince mine. Ottawa announced its plans a year ago to close or sell the Devco mine sites and related operations by December 2000.
An $111 million compensation package prepared by federal minister Ralph Goodale is so inadequate that some miners with 30 years experience will not qualify for early retirement because of the young age they started to work at the mines.
The federal government has promised a further $68 million for economic development in Cape Breton following the Devco liquidation. There are no details.
Devco's actions were backed by the Nova Scotia government of Tory Premier Hamm, the Coal Association of Canada, the Regional Municipality of Cape Breton, and the corporate-driven Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. All responded to the occupation and strike with thinly veiled threats and intimidation conveyed daily in the local media.
The strike "makes it more difficult for (Ottawa) to sell the (Prince) mine, and from that point of view the miners may be putting their jobs in the continuing mine at risk," said Coal Association President Alan Johnston. "What is happening now would cause a buyer to pause."
The federal government, which owns Devco, has aimed to close the mines since it bought out the privately owned DOSCO in the mid-1960s. Promising to gradually replace mining jobs with good-paying, high tech jobs, Ottawa has failed to deliver. Unemployment rates averaging 20%, and sometimes reaching 30%, have been the norm in Cape Breton over the last 40 years.
Successive federal governments have allowed mining operations at Devco to become technologically antiquated, ("archaic" as one source described it), increasingly costly as a result, and more unsafe for workers mining the soft coal seams that now extend up to two and a half miles off-shore, under the sea bed. Roof falls at the Phalen mine had become frequent before it was closed in December.
"It's the result of almost a year of frustration and unanswered questions and uncertainty and everything else," says United Mine Workers' District 26 President Steve Drake, who represents most of the Devco workers.
"People have been "pushed to the limit," says Drake. "They feel like they're in a helpless situation - like a turtle on its back. People here are fighting for their lives, they're fighting for their futures, they're fighting for their families, and I would think that anyone in Vancouver or anyone in Montreal or anyone in Toronto would do similar things in similar circumstances."
But while Drake "sympathizes" with the miners, he won't "endorse" the strike or the occupation. "The position is that we're not endorsing this (wildcat strike), and we're not commenting on it at all. We're not involved in the picket lines," he said.
But if the union is standing clear for legal or other reasons, union members have closed ranks as evidenced by the unanimous vote to ignore the back to work order obtained by Devco just 48 hours after the wildcat began.
"The men are at the point that they feel they're getting runaround from their union, and we haven't heard anything from the feds since they told us they were pulling out," said laid-off miner Jim Noble. "Every time the fire dies down around here they put another stick on it, like closing down Phalen early, or laying guys off early."
"People are down to pure frustration," said Noble. "Welfare is the next thing for everybody, and a family of four gets $900."
"I'm going to be honest with you," said one striker, "the men dug their heels in this time and it's going to have to be something big to get them back to work now."
At the very least, the "big something" is a clear commitment from Natural Resources Minister Ralph Goodale by Jan. 19, that the severance and early retirement package will be substantially improved, and that jobs will be saved and new jobs created for Devco mineworkers.
Nova Scotia Liberals and New Democrats agree. Liberal Leader McLellan was down the pit to meet with strikers "and carry their demands to Ottawa," while NDP MPs Michelle Dockrill and Peter Mancini are pressing Goodale "to understand the attitude of the men on the picket line. A lot of them feel they have nothing to lose," said Mancini.
Nova Scotia Communists agree, and are calling on the Liberal government to stop the liquidation of Devco, the sale of the Prince mine and other Devco assets.
"Laid-off workers need a compensation package from Ottawa that is fair and just, and that means much more than the $111 million proposed by Minister Ralph Goodale," Nova Scotia Communists say, adding their voice to the call by the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour for Goodale to negotiate a fair settlement for compensation and jobs directly with the UMW and the other unions representing workers at Devco.
"Devco is a crown corporation, and it should stay that way," said Communist Party Labour Secretary Liz Rowley, noting that the drive to privatize crown corporations in the Maritimes comes from both federal and provincial governments, and their profit-hungry corporate backers.
"Devco, the provincially owned Sydney Steel Corporation (SYSCO), and the recently privatized Nova Scotia Power and Light Corporation were all publicly owned - and for good reason - they provided jobs and created products and services that the region and the country needs: coal, steel and power. Privatization is going to mean increased unemployment and misery in Cape Breton. And it's going to make it much harder to fix the structural problems built in by successive Liberal and Tory governments, the massive health and environmental problems in the area, massive regional economic disparity, and so on.
"The Communist Party advocates integrated and environmentally sustainable economic development that will create a cross-Canada industrial and manufacturing base able to provide good jobs and living standards, in the Maritimes and all parts of Canada.
"That means fighting capitalist globalization, including the MAI and WTO, and other deals that would rip up Canadian sovereignty, level Canadian standards and interests, and destroy Canadian jobs and economic development.
"Natural resources, including coal, belong to all Canadians and should be developed under public ownership and democratic control. The collapse of the fishery due to the ransacking by transnational floating fish factories is the proof of why this is an essential prerequisite.
"Ship-building should clearly be a central part of an economic development plan in Atlantic Canada. Canada needs a merchant marine, and should set about building one now on both coasts.
"Our young people need work. Let them build ships, housing, hospitals, schools, day care centres, and more. There's lots of work to be done in Cape Breton, but no government or political party with the will to start the job. The truth is it's going to take mass political action to force this agenda for people onto the country's centre stage.
"We salute the Cape Breton mineworkers who are doing this today, in the best fighting spirit of their union's first firebrand leader and founder, J. B. McLachlan."
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