Canadian labor union Unifor gives world’s second-largest metals and mining corporation Rio Tinto 72 hour extortion notice – July 22, 2021,

People in Canada via the federal government are getting paid to do absolutely nothing, so who can blame unionized workers for demanding more money. Obviously, Rio Tinto is a company I follow, and well, if this is the new normal, prices for everything are going to have to rise.

If interest rates are never normalized, I think all PRIVATE SECTOR unions should consider going on strike and I personally think if Rio Tinto has already concluded that carbon taxes and more government regulations are the new normal that Rio Tinto should simply pass the costs onto the consumer? But can they?

I’m looking for the year 2022 to see if the price for everything goes up and stays up or if interest rates get normalized. I personally think Rio Tinto employees should have waited until 2022 because they might actually sell themselves short, Unifor is angling for a Defined Benefit plan.

Now, to those of you who don’t know, a Defined Benefit plan is an employer-based program that pays benefits based on factors such as length of employment and salary history, I assume Rio Tinto employees want this defined plan to keep up with inflation. A lot of public sector workers have non-market-based Defined Benefit plans.

But these types of retirement plans are very risky for employers because if the market goes sour a PRIVATE company could easily go bankrupt and because a Defined Benefit plan is a permanent debt on a companies balance sheet, fewer lenders will be willing to lend to that private business and may charge said private business a premium to borrow money.

Unifor is one of the reasons GM limited its exposure to Canada, Private companies aren’t fixtures like public sector ’employers’. Via Unifor Rio Tinto already changed its hiring behavior, which is bad for the current crop of Rio Tinto employees, whatever deal is hammered out between Rio Tinto and Unifor may lead to Rio Tinto changing how it does business in Canada.

As I stated above a Defined Benefit plan is a permanent fixture on a companies balance sheet, and for argument’s sake let’s imagine this Defined Benefit plan keeps pace with inflation, Rio Tinto will have to find a way to cover that fixed expense which is very risky to their profitability.

To give you an example of how damaging labour unions like Unifor have been to GM, currently, GM’s stock price is about $57 per share, Toyota is $179 per share The reason for this are the U.S and Canadian labour unions, Toyota like GM has a presence in my province of Ontario Canada, however, the Unifor sales pitch hasn’t worked on Toyota employees.

Although Unifor gave GM employees the illusion that their bully tactics would put GM employees in a better negotiation position, the reality is Toyota employees have far more job security and pensions than GM employees could ever dream of having. Hopefully, things will be different for Rio Tinto employees.

Canadian union Unifor gives Rio Tinto 72-hour strike notice | reuters.com

Interesting times ahead