Canadians join London picket over Vale-Inco dispute

The strikers, members of the United Steelworkers' Union (USW) that organises workers at a nickel mine in Sudbury, Ontario, will be joined by British Unite union members at the protest to challenge bosses from Vale-Inco mining company attending an international metals conference.

Vale-Inco has become infamous for threatening to slash the pay and pensions of its Canadian workforce and attacking workers' jobs at its Brazilian mines, despite raking in almost £8 billion profits last year.

The multinational, which is partly owned by Brazil's second-largest bank - itself controlled by the Brazilian government - has declared that it will use strike-breakers to try to force an end to the walkout by its 3,500 workers in Sudbury.

The workers have been on indefinite strike since July 13 and thousands more miners at Brazil's largest mine in the Amazonian state of Para downed tools for two days last week amid growing resistance to Vale-Inco's threats.

As Unite members prepared to join their colleagues in the USW on the London picket line, Unite joint general secretary Derek Simpson emphasised that the miners' fight was "against a hugely profitable, greedy multinational putting the squeeze on our brothers and sisters.

"The message we will deliver to would-be investors is that Vale-Inco aren't only fighting their workforce, they are fighting the global union Workers Uniting that both Unite and the USW are part of," he explained.

USW international president Leo Gerard pointed out that "mining natural resources has been a profitable enterprise for generations in Sudbury, but for a multinational company to now attempt to slash living standards while enjoying sky-rocketing profits is totally unacceptable.

"Workers in Britain, Canada and around the world understand this and workers' solidarity and actions such as this will send a powerful message," he insisted.

The Canadian workers have been encouraged by reports that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has sought to intervene by using his government's stake in the Banco do Brasil to pressure Vale-Inco bosses not to cut jobs.