Lock‑out at ABI Bécancour

On January 11, 2019, the workers at the Bécancourt Smelter celebrated a sad anniversary, that of a year of contempt and arrogance by employers, state sabotage, judicial intimidation and social isolation. In short, they were celebrating a year of lockout.

The story of the ABI lockout may be the first we cover in our newspaper pages, but anyone interested in labor disputes in factories across the province could describe it to you as almost standard practice. It started with a request to modify the pension fund, which was rejected, then the declaration of a lockout. Then comes an injunction limiting the picketing, itself followed by a declaration of contempt of court, and a strengthening of the employers’ offensive, which now proposes, among other things, to cut jobs, to underpay workers, and to redo the whole organization of labor at its convenience. We can add to this the fact that Hydro‑Quebec (the provincial electric company) is particularly cooperative with Alcoa, or point out that this conflict demonstrates for the umpteenth time the ineffectiveness of the anti‑scab law. While the strikers have repeatedly identified the presence of scabs, the inspectors, having to announce themselves in advance at the factory gates, can only be ineffective in their attempts to find them, while the managerial lackeys have plenty of time to hide the strike-breakers. In short, the workers have all the rules of the game against them. Their determination is exemplary in the face of such vicious attacks from one of the great capitalist institutions.

That the lockouts of ABI have shown the maximum fighting spirit in the current framework, trying to slow production as much as possible, demonstrating in front of the houses of the company leadership, and trying to put pressure on the government to abolish the preferential treatment that Hydro-Québec gives to ABI. However, what must be put on the table is the question of respecting the traditional framework of a trade union struggle. Indeed, with the globalization of markets, the intensification of international competition between capitalist groups inevitably has repercussions on the working conditions of the proletariat. Profit can only be extracted by compressing variable capital and therefore working conditions. Alcoa has already, in recent years, closed many factories in Spain and the USA; we can therefore see that the offensive against the workers of Bécancour has more complex origins than just the factory itself.

So this causes us to wonder: is the strategy of the United Steelworkers the right one? Can the strike against a multinational can be summed up as stopping production in one place? Especially since, staying within the limits of legal action, the stopping of production can only be partial. As the lockout drags on, the question of extending the strike to other Alcoa sites in the province seriously arises, so why not in the world? And with this question, the workers movement that must absolutely reflect on its practice in the last decades. Is the search for the “negotiated compromise” a good tactic when fierce competition forces companies to compress more than the concessions matter? Does respect for legality, the Labor Code, and the systematic expectation of state action as a ’’grand arbiter ’’ of the social question still remain a possible path at a time when capitalism is sinking into a structural crisis?

A brief look at the past teaches us the opposite. Social rights were not acquired and defended by compromise and media respectability, especially not in times of economic downturn. It is through solidarity, the hard and extended strike, sabotage, blockage, and challenges to capitalist laws that the proletarians win. It is by our own means that we win, not by the hope that politicians or “mediation” professionals will settle our fate. It is by taking charge of our collective means of action according to our own rules and objectives that we can change things.