Management and labor at the U.S. Borax plant in Boron are headed for a lockout or strike if contract negotiations don’t show some signs of progress. … International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 30 spokesman Craig Merrilees calls the company’s position union busting. “They are trying to get rid of the union,” Merrilees said. The Rio Tinto parent group is sitting on $3.7 billion in profit this year while “whining to workers to sacrifice. … The workers at Borax are taking a stand for good jobs against one of the biggest and most powerful mining corporations in the world that apparently thinks they can push people around in the high desert.”
The ILWU Local 30 contract at the Borax plant expired Nov. 4. The union employees now are working without a contract, and the company currently is running an advertisement for permanent replacement employees.