Lockout at Quebec Rio Tinto Aluminum Smelter Drags On

About 780 workers at an aluminum smelter run by the mining giant Rio Tinto in Quebec are heading into the fourth week of a lockout, with many still braving the frigid weather to picket though an injunction—in place until April—that bars them from blocking the smelter entrance. Their contract had expired New Year’s Eve after weeks of fruitless negotiations. On New Year’s Day, the company locked them out.

The union, a United Steelworkers local, voted to authorize a strike and warned one was imminent, with a major point of contention being Rio Tinto’s increasing reliance on nonunion subcontracters. A Montreal paper reported that the company planned to more than double subcontracter work hours from 140,000 in 2010 to 350,000 this coming year.

Shortly after the lockout started, the Syndicat des Métallos d'Alma union accused Rio Tinto of illegally bringing in replacement workers by helicopter, and filed a complaint with the government. The company said about 200 managers were running the plant, which normally employs 1,000, and that production at the facility, which is about 150 miles north of Quebec City, was cut by a third.

Railway workers had reportedly previously refused to cross the picket line to deliver aluminum oxide raw materials, but resumed deliveries after being suspended and threatened with losing their jobs.

The smelter is one of Rio Tinto subsidiary Alcan’s largest in North America. Rio Tinto bought Alcan four years ago for $38 billion, making the company the world’s largest aluminum supplier.

But last fall, Rio Tinto announced it is shrinking its investment in the aluminum business worldwide, and concentrating more on iron ore globally and a small number of highly profitable Canadian aluminum operations. The company said that in the face of falling aluminum prices thanks to oversupply from China, it would sell $8 billion worth of aluminum operations in the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France and Germany.

It will keep its Canadian operations, which are more profitable in part because they are powered by government-owned hydro-electric plants on nearby rivers.