Brazilian workers at Vale showed solidarity with& their brothers and sisters in Canada during a yearlong strike. Photo courtesy of USW

United Steelworkers members who work in mines and smelters in Sudbury and Port Colburne, Ontario, voted July 8, 2010, in favor of a new collective bargaining agreement with Brazilian multinational company Vale. The ratification ends a yearlong strike, the longest in Vale’s history, but the struggle for Brazilian workers continues.   
   
Vale, the second largest mining company in the world, has more than $22 billion in cash on hand from the last several years of a booming commodities market. Now, the company is using the economic downturn to fire workers, reduce rights and benefits, and roll back its commitments to workers and communities in Brazil and elsewhere.

Through partners in Brazilian labor such as the CUT and its project to support networks of unions at multinational employers, the Solidarity Center program in Brazil builds the capacity of mineworkers' unions throughout Brazil. In August 2009, the Solidarity Center worked with the USW and CUT-Multi to support a series of workshops for mineworkers on negotiating with multinational mining companies like Vale. The USW brought workers and local leaders from Vale operations in Canada to Brazil and shared information about company attempts to take away rights and benefits and divide workers. Workers from eight states in Brazil described tactics Vale uses there to reduce its commitments to workers and communities. Brazilian workers at Vale face more dangerous conditions and unstable employment, earn lower pay, and have fewer workplace rights.

For details on the contract and the international solidarity campaign that helped bring it about, visit: http://www.fairdealnow.ca/