HIGH-GRADE NI-CU-PT-PD-ZN-CR-AU-V-TI DISCOVERIES IN THE "RING OF FIRE"
NI 43-101 Update (September 2012): 11.1 Mt @ 1.68% Ni, 0.87% Cu, 0.89 gpt Pt and 3.09 gpt Pd and 0.18 gpt Au (Proven & Probable Reserves) / 8.9 Mt @ 1.10% Ni, 1.14% Cu, 1.16 gpt Pt and 3.49 gpt Pd and 0.30 gpt Au (Inferred Resource)
Message: Interesting Perspective - Unions Should Buy Shares to Exert Control
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Old style doomed in management, unions — JOHN R. HUNT'S ON THE ROCKS
Posted By JOHN R. HUNT, THE NUGGET
Posted 8 days ago
There must be a better way, or at the very least, there should be a better way.
A lot of good people in Sudbury, and elsewhere in Canada where the recession is biting, must be thinking or saying something like this as they ponder or marvel at the strike in Sudbury.
Now mentioning the strike here proves I am an idiot. I have lived in mining towns most of my life and seen a good many strikes.
I learned that the small-town newspaperman should keep his mouth shut, write nothing but the most elemental facts. And then he or she will still be detested, decried and generally made miserable.
Leave all the analysis or comments to the Toronto experts. They don’t know a drift from a stope, or a hoist from a hangnail, but they do not have to walk down the road and meet the strikers or an angry mine manager.
Mining is not working in a candy factory. Once it was routinely dangerous, the mine managers had little regard for human life and even medical attention was primitive.
I read an eyewitness account of the famous Dr. Drummond stitching up a gash in a miner’s leg in about 1905. Drummond was a popular Montreal doctor who also owned a rich Cobalt mine.
The observer noted Drummond’s training was pre-Listerian. He stuck the needle into the mattress between every stitch while taking a puff on his cigar.
There was a report in a 1909 edition of the Cobalt Nugget that quoted the local coroner. At least 100 men died in the Cobalt mines in the previous year.
It was much the same all over North America. The miners could only survive by sticking together while their union tried to get better conditions. This was true in Sudbury which has a long tradition of hard-nosed and hard-fighting unionism.
That working men grew bitter is not surprising. There was no protective clothing, no provincial safety regulations, no compensation for injuries. Life was a jungle and only the strong or lucky survived.
There was not much union activity until after the First World War. After suffering in the trenches the men who returned were angry. They deserved something better.
In 1919 there was a huge strike in the Cobalt camp. It has been the subject of books and many learned studies. There were rumours of Bolshevik agents and a mysterious Russian princess. Others claim the mine managers knew the easy days were over. There was still lots of silver but it would cost much more to find and mine.
I have known decent mine managers and good companies that cared for their employees. I have also known arrogant pigs who lusted to provoke a strike just to prove they were bosses.
Much the same can be said of union organizers. Good, bad and indifferent, some care, others only want to advance their own careers. Persuading some men to go on strike makes them look good at the union’s head office, no matter the cost to strikers and their families.
There is much to be said for requiring the organizers to receive nothing but the same strike pay as their followers when a strike is called.
Times and conditions have changed. The strike is a blunt and crude weapon. It may work against a small mine or company. It is very difficult to win when fighting a huge company with many mines.
Outside mining technology is making life difficult for unions. Jobs can be outsourced to India and other distant lands. Computer programs are now being written in India for North American clients, and at much less cost.
Is there any future for unions? Are working folk increasingly powerless?
Not completely. Public service unions can make life miserable for the general public until they get what they want
But unions operating in the real world will have a difficult time unless they change their tactics.
I believe unions and working people as a whole should forget strikes, and instead take on the corporations in the stock market. The big unions not only have the money to invest, but employ all kinds of experts.
As shareholders the unions would be entitled to issue newsletters, or use the Internet to warn shareholders when the corporation is going wrong.
The world is in recession because no one was applying independent criticism. The public wants it.
I have much sympathy for the Sudbury strikers. But instead of striking they should have stalled. As it is, I can see the strike being in the mine owner’s interest if it lasts past Christmas.
If those Brazilians want to prove they care about Canada, they must do something different.
Instead of fighting about a nickel bonus, offer the miners shares in the company. Make them partners, and then all would profit.
Old-style management and old-style unionism is doomed. Both sides must get their act together for their mutual benefit.
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