In Sudbury, Ontario, twenty-five hundred workers employed by the multinational mining corporation Vale are on strike. The industrial action comes after employees twice rejected a company offer that would significantly reduce the health benefits of younger workers. Vale, which took over the Ontario nickel mine from Inco in 2006, has treated the pandemic as an opportunity to launch an attack on an already insecure workforce.

Vale’s most recent offer — rejected by 87 percent of voting United Steel Worker (USW) members — would eliminate retiree health and insurance benefits for all employees hired after June 1. For future retirees, this would spell the end of over-the-counter drug coverage, funds for semiprivate hospital rooms, life insurance, nonoccupational accident insurance and “dismemberment insurance.” Management have offered to replace the previous benefit system by giving new hires a $1,000 postretirement “health care savings account.”

Across the country, companies have forced employees to accept increased hours, worse benefits, and lower pay in order to return to work. Vale’s attack on employee benefits follows a wave of lockouts by Canadian employers seeking to use the pandemic to launch an assault on workers. Molson Coors, Reliance Home Comfort, Ocean Concrete in Victoria, Delta Hotels, Fenner Dunlop, Welcome Place, and Exceldor have all used the pandemic as an opportunity to weaken the power of labor.