From: DPIROT@vm.ucs.UAlberta.CA
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Going Down the Mine
Date: 15 Dec 92 05:18:04 GMT
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton

This article appeared in The Edmonton Journal Monday, Dec. 14th. I
though it might be of interest to readers of this newsgroup.

           INCO Offers 58 Women Mining Job or No Job

 Fifty-eight female office workers in Sudbury, some over 50 years
old, must go underground and mine nickel if they want to keep
working, Inco Ltd. has ordered.
'It's suicide', says Shirley Erkila, 44, who's been an Inco clerk
for 16 years. 'I'm scared. We're all scared. We're devastated. It's
insensitive. It's terrible.'
'None of us want to do it but we're being forced to do it', said
Erkila, who knows the 'dirty' job is also dangerous and difficult.
'I don't want to go down there.'
'They have three weeks to think about it.' Jerry Rogers, an Inco
official in Sudbury, said yesterday.
'We have too many white collar workers and we're short of miners.
We've got to get our costs down. We're below our break-even point.'
Rogers said that the women must either go to 'stope school', a six
week company mining class, or be out of work. They'll be paid by
Inco to train and 'mining is not as physically demanding as it once
was', Rogers said. 'Most people will be able to do it.'
The women, and some male colleagues in office jobs, were quietly
handed the company's rock-hard ultimatum by supervisors Friday at
the start of Inco's three-week mine shutdown.
When given the news, one woman 'was so shook up about it, she
couldn't drive home Friday,' Erkila said.
But one of the only two female miners at Inco, Sue Vallier, said
her advice to the white collars is 'don't panic; give it a try.'
Vallier, 43, is a 'mucker' at the 1219 metre level, slushing ore
from muck. 'It's hot, it's wet, but I love it.'
Besides, the single woman is making $50,000 a year for an eight
hour day, 'and when I come home I'm not that tired.'
'But some women can't lift 10 pounds of potatoes,' Vallier
cautions. 'They won't survive down there.'
The United Steelworkers Union is outraged. The office, technical,
and professional women had just organized into a steelworkers local
a year ago. Union officials now feel that forcing the women into
the 2 km. deep mines is 'retribution for organizing' union leader
Wayne Fraser charged.
'We'll get every women's group in Sudbury on this tomorrow,' Fraser
promised.
'We'll fight Inco on this. It's a dangerous environment for
anybody. Women have a right to chose their work environment. They
don't have to put these women underground. It's the worst form of
sexual discrimination. Systemic discrimination, in fact. They've
given these women no choice.
But Fraser admits that, in a perverse way, the only tactic the
women may have to fight the humiliation of forced layoffs is to go
to mining school.
'Inco wants them all to quit.' Fraser said. 'I hope they go
underground. It takes lots of strength but we'll even recommend
they go underground.'
But Erkila, who teaches sexual harassment courses to male miners,
said there will be a hellish reception below for the women-of-the-
desk turned women-of-the-deep.
'These guys have told me that they don't want women in their
environment down below and they mean it,' she said.
Elizabeth Salhani, 39, an accountant at Inco for 13 years, vows
'they're (Inco) not going to get the best of me.' She makes $33,000
now, but this might hit $60,000 if she can endure the deep.
'I'm under five feet tall, and a little overweight, and I'm scared,
and it's not what I want to do, and it's dirty and hard, but I have
no choice.'
'I'm going down.'
           ---------------------------------------
The article raised a number of questions for me, among them:

1. By what convoluted logic could Inco's decision be termed 'sexual
discrimination'?
2. The article refers to 'some male colleagues in office jobs'.
Though the writer of the article did not bother to talk to any of
them, surely some of them might feel the same way as the women
about being forced to go down the mine after working for a long
time in an office job.
3. 'Women have a right to chose their work environment'. What about
men?
4. The work is 'dirty' and 'dangerous'. Surely just as dirty and
dangerous for men as for women.
5. One thing that was not mentioned was how the Unemployment
Insurance Commission would treat those who refused the retraining
offer. Recent changes in policy could result in benefits being
denied those who refuse alternate employment in lieu of
termination. Would the female office workers be treated differently
than their male counterparts? The UIC has indicated that persons
leaving their jobs because of sexual harassment might be given
special consideration.

No women's group has yet commented on the situation. Here is a
perfect opportunity for women to increase greatly their
representation in a male dominated occupation, and at the same time
to obtain sizeable increases in remuneration. I would be very
interested to hear what the feminist groups have to say on the
matter.
Newsgroups: alt.feminism