(Montreal) The Quebec director of the Steelworkers union, Dominic Lemieux, invites his various local sections to make donations to the ArcelorMittal strikers in Longueuil and Contrecœur, after two weeks of labor dispute.
Posted yesterday at 3:10 p.m.
Mr. Lemieux, who is also vice-president of the FTQ, launched this “call for solidarity” to the other local sections of the Steelworkers, when he came to meet the workers of ArcelorMittal in Contrecœur and Longueuil, near the pickets. strike last Friday.
“We are 60,000 in Quebec” (members of the Steelworkers union). “You are always the first to go to the picket lines when there is a conflict” in another company or factory, he told the ArcelorMittal picketers gathered.
“Here, the elevator has to come back,” added Mr. Lemieux, inviting other Steelworkers locals to make recurring donations. “The sinews of war is money. »
The 800 workers, members of three local sections of the Steelworkers union, affiliated with the FTQ, rejected the latest employer offers last week, in proportions of 98% and 99%. The three negotiate together.
In his speech to the strikers, Mr. Lemieux said that “the steel gang” was ahead of the others in the 1980s. “We were the locomotive. We had the best collective agreements, the best salaries, the best pension funds, the best group insurance. Over time, it crumbled,” he said.
When the strike mandates were announced two weeks ago, management said it was confident of reaching an agreement on the renewal of the collective agreements.
She said she hoped that this agreement “will establish a balance between the competitiveness of our business and the advantageous working conditions of our employees”.