The former submarine captain and marine counter terror expert had managed a lot of crisis situations in his career but a violent, year-long strike with steelworkers wasn’t something he had tackled before.

On July 13, 2009 more than 3,000 United Steelworkers from Locals 6500 and 6200 representing production and maintenance employees in Sudbury and Port Colborne, Ont. went on strike at Vale Inco.

And while Kavanagh had met with his security partners, AFI International based out of Milton, Ont., six months prior to the strike, he says he was one of the few at Vale Inco who had a feeling it was going to be a long, hard fight. In the end, the strike would become a multi-million dollar security operation.

“In the past, the union won. It’s as simple as that — the company always caved,” says Kavanagh. “They thought two-to-three weeks. Boy were they wrong.”

But the will of the company was just as steadfast as that of the miners.

Vale decided it could afford to operate through a strike and that decision significantly changed the dynamics of how the action played out.

At the peak of the strike there were 200 AFI personnel in Sudbury. Kavanagh also ramped up his own in-house team of protection services officers from 57 to 110.

“We had more security personnel than the City had police officers (there are 280 police officers in Greater Sudbury Regional Police Service),” says Kavanagh.

It was a massive departure from what security looked like prior to the strike as Inco had not made security a priority prior to the work stoppage.

The challenge was to protect over 20 locations, some of them over 100 km away from Sudbury.

“I personally thought the strike would last a year and it did. Many others were talking months. Strikes in the past were only weeks (the longest one being nine months). I thought a year because I knew Vale was not the old Inco and they would not approach things in the same way,” he says.

Massive plan adjustments were necessary throughout the strike because originally Vale Inco had not planned to operate the mines while workers were striking.

“Everyone in Canada assumed we would not operate during the strike — it had never happened in the past,” Kavanagh says.

However, months into the strike the company decided to proceed with operations. This decision multiplied the security challenges 100 fold, Kavanagh says.

“We had to move people, assets and product across numerous picket lines daily. The decision to continue to operate the mine inflamed striking workers.”

Kavanagh’s portfolio at Vale includes establishing a corporate-wide emergency management plan and the maintenance and audit of all security functions in the eight countries in which Vale Inco operates. But in 2009-2010 his biggest challenge was the situation in Sudbury — typically considered the least of his concerns in a global operation.

He says the contingency planning for the strike took about a year and included engaging a third party security service and doing threat risk assessments.

“We did the threat risk assessments about three months prior to the strike start date,” he says.

But all the planning in the world would not have prepared Kavanagh, Vale Inco management or the town of Sudbury for what was about to transpire.

Violence and confrontation became a significant problem and required alternative tactics the company wasn’t initially ready to accept.

“There were times when management was having a hard time understanding some of the things that could happen and did happen on picket lines. On one occasion we put AFI directly in front of them to explain what had happened in recent labour disruptions at other companies, why they had developed tactics as they had (access teams escorting vehicles across picket lines, evidence gathering requirements etc.) and the advice turned out to be a very accurate prediction,” says Kavanagh.

Once that trust was gained, AFI was consulted regularly for comment on what tactics Vale Inco might see as the strike unfolded.

“It really helped in our strike management and tactical planning,” says Kavanagh.

Jim Rovers, vice-president of crisis and disaster response at AFI International headed up the strike operation for AFI. He says it became a battle of hearts and minds — one the union was determined to win.

“Union leader Leo Gerard realized he had an international stage to show just how strong the union could be,” says Rovers. “As companies globalize, there is more at stake for the unions too — if you look at the Steelworkers, how do they get a guy or girl to sign a union card if they get bowled over by a multi-national? You have to be able to show a big union can fight a big company.”

The year-long strike, which ended July 8, 2010, would test the will of all involved.

“I’ve been at this 20 years and it was by far the most challenging project I’ve worked on,” says Rovers.
He says his most trying day was in February of last year when there were picketers showing up in balaclavas, slashing tires and people were being assaulted.

“Out of the 3,000 people on strike 2,950 were just good hard working union folks and the other 50 were what the union calls activists. We knew if we could manage to diffuse those 50 the other 2,950 would be easy to manage,” he says.