The Canwest News Service reports this morning that, “On Thursday, Brazilian mining giant Vale SA announced it is removing the name ‘Inco’ from its nickel business, less than four years after it plunked down nearly $20 billion for the Canadian miner. …In a lengthy statement, Vale said that scrapping the Inco name is a ‘natural evolution’ of the company that aligns it more fully with Vale’s other mining operations around the world.”
The experience of the 3,100 workers of Local 6500 of the United Steelworkers, who have been on strike against Vale Inco in Sudbury since July 2009, tells us a lot about the company’s ‘other mining operations around the world’.
The April 2010 issue of Report on Business magazine reports that, “Vale wants to have the same style of operation (in Sudbury) that it has in the rest of the world.” But while Inco mines “go down two kilometres from the surface” in Sudbury, “most of (Vale’s) other mining operations are open pits, worked by relatively unskilled employees.” But Vale Inco has made it clear that, “workers in Sudbury can expect the same kind of contract that Vale workers get elsewhere in the world.” That means fewer workers, lower benefits, and anti-union tactics. More at http://canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=3172.
The Council of Canadians would also argue that part of the ‘natural evolution’ of the company should be to respect water.
In April 2009, Vale Inco started constructing a nickel processing plant at Long Harbour in Newfoundland. The $2.2 billion plant – to be completed in 2013 – will process nickel from the company’s operations in Voisey’s Bay and dump approximately 400,000 tonnes of tailings annually into Sandy Pond, a 30-hectare freshwater lake. This destruction of Sandy Pond is possible because of the ‘Schedule 2’ exemption in the Metal Mining Effluent Regulations of the federal Fisheries Act.