Barrett continues to seek answers to ongoing steel questions

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO
November 3, 2010

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): The member for Haldimand–Norfolk has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer given by the Acting Premier. Member for Haldimand–Norfolk, you have up to five minutes.

Mr. Toby Barrett: I really do appreciate and thank the Legislature for this time. I did indicate my dissatisfaction with the answer to my question, first to the Acting Premier and then on to the labour minister.
In fact, neither the Minister of Finance nor the Minister of Labour, in my view, provided anything near an answer to my question of what the government is doing now, today, tonight, to bring resolution to this labour roller-coaster that workers at US Steel, both Hilton and Lake Erie Works, have been forced to endure.

It was earlier this year that I was asking for a late show due to unanswered questions with respect to the steelworkers down at Lake Erie Nanticoke, the US Steel plant down there. As we know, US Steel is the largest steel maker in the United States. They took over Nanticoke’s Lake Erie Works, and acquired Stelco Inc. in 2007 for $1.2 billion. This was Canada’s last domestically owned steel mill. Dofasco, Algoma and Stelco have all been purchased by foreign companies. We have a US company purchasing Canadian plants, and those Canadian plants are now vulnerable to foreign competition from the United States. Under President Obama’s buy-America regime, we see a trend here: competition from US plants owned by the same company, US Steel. US Steel indicated then they have to wait for the economy to come back and the price of steel to return.

We saw what happened down in my area: Steelworkers with Local 8782 saw 1,100 laid off; 157 were locked out until last spring. They were locked out for a 10-month period altogether. I would visit the plant gates, usually at night, last winter. You would hear coyotes. You would see the odd turkey during the day, occasionally deer. There was just nothing going on down there, and that’s the anchor for our regional economy. Thankfully, workers in that area headed back to work. There was an agreement in April.
I do note, however, that the issue of the 47 workers who belong to the same union local as the other workers at US Steel, 8782, legally work for another company, the former Heckett that’s now called Harsco Metals—that’s unresolved. They’ve been locked out since March 2009. They’ve been locked out for 15 months now.

At Hilton Works US Steel, déjà vu all over again: Close to 1,000 workers, again, many from my area, are being threatened. We have a heritage with that company in Hamilton going back to 1910.

We’ll talk a bit of money here: Taxpayers doled out $150 million during Stelco’s bankruptcy protection before US Steel received federal government approval for a takeover based on job and steel production commitments, commitments that have yet to be met. I continue to question what input this Ontario government has had with the federal level to ensure protection of Ontario jobs. I’ve spoken to the federal government. I’ve been unable to receive any confirmation of anything in this regard.

While the finance minister told me today, “We will continue to work with the federal government,” he was negligent on any details whatsoever as to what work that exactly entails. The labour minister did chime in on the supplementary and said that, “If there is any chance or hope of keeping the plant going, of assisting those workers, we will be there for those workers.” I would suggest that the government be there now, be there tonight, not sometime in the future.

The current labour contract, as I understand, in Hamilton—that would be Local 1005 and US Steel—expired at the end of July. There has been a provincial conciliator who couldn’t bring both sides together and issued a no-board report. I would like to hear some of the details of that this evening, because the clock is ticking. Will a lockout in Hamilton permanently close the blast furnace? It has already been shut down. Media reports indicate that US Steel is bringing—

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bruce Crozier): Thank you. The parliamentary assistant, the member for Timiskaming–Cochrane: You have up to five minutes to respond.

Mr. David Ramsay: First and foremost, I’d like to say to the member that we very much feel for the families and the workers in what has happened in Hamilton, in that ongoing situation with US Steel. No one at present, as the member knows, is being laid off, and all of the 300 workers have been reassigned to other jobs. However, it is still unfortunate that when these types of situations occur, families and workers’ lives have been disrupted. The whole community has been impacted.

Job creation and economic growth remain a priority for this government. Our investments are creating a generation of highly skilled, highly trained people who will make Ontario globally competitive through our skills to jobs action plan and Employment Ontario, which includes our rapid re-employment and training services and our Ontario skills development program.

The Ontario government has always had two main objectives in the 2004-06 Stelco restructuring: to ensure the long-term viability of the former Stelco, and to protect the pensions of the retirees and current employees. We have met both of those objectives.

The government is proud to have played a role in Stelco’s successful 2006 restructuring. We were active participants in discussions regarding Stelco throughout the entire 26-month process to bring about financial restructuring, and we provided a note, or a loan, if you will, for $150 million. The funding provided under this note went directly towards reducing the pension deficit and has helped bridge the important gap in coming to a final acceptable restructuring plan. The province will allow US Steel Canada to eliminate the pension deficit over a 10-year period, and if the pension deficit is fully eliminated within 10 years, the loan will be 75% forgiven; so there’s an incentive there. If the company is in good financial shape and able to fully eliminate the deficit within 10 years, warrants received by the province as consideration for our $150-million note will help to ensure that Ontario taxpayers receive value for their contribution.

I want to commend the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Economic Development and Trade and the Minister of Labour for all the work that they are doing on this situation. We also have one of our highly skilled mediators assisting all the parties at the table.

We’ll continue to do everything we can to assist the parties to find an agreement. Our focus is always on working with the parties and helping to bring them together to work towards a final agreement. We believe that agreements reached at the table are the most productive, stable and fair. Our record speaks for itself.

Last year, more than 97% of negotiations in Ontario were successful without a work stoppage. This is in stark contrast to the Conservatives, who turned the labour climate into chaos, and the NDP, who ripped up hundreds of direct collective agreements.

Ontarians don’t want to turn the clock back to this. We’ll keep working together and moving forward to find labour peace.