{"id":54629,"date":"2021-07-28T14:11:43","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T18:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=54629"},"modified":"2021-07-28T15:15:50","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T19:15:50","slug":"900-aluminum-smelter-workers-at-rio-tinto-alcans-facility-in-kitimat-on-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/900-aluminum-smelter-workers-at-rio-tinto-alcans-facility-in-kitimat-on-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"900 Aluminium Smelter Workers At Rio Tinto Alcan\u2019s facility In Kitimat On Strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

Workers at the Rio Tinto Alcan aluminum smelter in Kitimat have gone on strike, after almost seven weeks of negotiations between union officials and the company.<\/span><\/p>\n

The strike began just after midnight on July 25th following a <\/span>Unifor Local 2301 Notice of Strike<\/span><\/a> after Rio Tinto Alcan moved for joint mediation through the Labour Board.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unifor, the union representing more than 1,000 employees at the Kitimat smelter, had been seeking the first changes to workers\u2019 retirement income and benefit levels in more than a decade, as disputes regarding workers benefits and pension plans arose during negotiations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Unifor\u2019s national president, Jerry Dias said in a<\/span> statement <\/span><\/a>that \u201c<\/span>this strike comes down to Rio Tinto\u2019s greed and lack of respect for our hard-working members at the Kitimat smelting facilities. Our union is fully prepared to defend our members\u2019 rights and protect good jobs in Kitimat now and in the future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the union, there is also a backlog of more than 300 grievances resulting from the company's use of contractors and its refusal to hire full-time workers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unifor Local 2301 President Martin Mcllwrath also said in a statement that \u201cRio Tinto was given every opportunity to reach a fair deal but showed complete disregard for our issues. The difficult and demanding work our members do has made this facility a success for generations. We deserve nothing less than an agreement that respects us, and we will stand up for our rights.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Affonso Bizon, general manager of Rio Tinto BC Works, also released a statement regarding \u201cmisinformation\u201d about the negotiations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRio Tinto is NOT proposing any reduction in post-retirement or survival benefits. These are malicious rumors that are not benefiting either side of the table,\u201d the statement read, warning there could be major consequences for smelter operations if negotiations do not resume soon and the workforce goes back to capacity.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are over 1,000 employees working at the Kitimat smelter that has operated since 1954, which is still one of the largest single contributors to British Columbia's manufacturing GDP, according to <\/span>Rio Tinto Alcan. <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

More to come...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Workers at the Rio Tinto Alcan aluminum smelter in Kitimat have gone on strike, after almost seven weeks of negotiations between union officials and the company. The strike began just after midnight on July 25th following a Unifor Local 2301 Notice of Strike after Rio Tinto Alcan moved for joint mediation through the Labour Board.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":54631,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[217,57,225],"tags":[8449,8451,8450,8453,8452],"radio":[245],"origine":[280,263,231],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54629"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54629"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=54629"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=54629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}