Representatives for United Steelworkers and Vale Ltd. met Friday to discuss the union’s complaint that contractors are doing work that 18 laid-off Steelworkers could be doing.

USW staff representative Myles Sullivan said the parties are trying to reach a resolution about the use of contractors as operations at the nickel company begin to return to normal after an almost year-long strike.

About 2,700 members of USW Local 6500 are back to work six weeks after they approved a new five-year collective agreement with the nickel company based in Brazil.

Vale spokeswoman Angie Robson said all employees except the 18 workers laid off are back on the job and all of Vale’s Sudbury plants are on their way to ramping up to full production.

Both furnaces have been fired up at the Copper Cliff Smelter Complex, and Vale is predicting it will return to full production in Sudbury by the end of September.

But Sullivan said life has not returned to normal for his 18 members who were told just after the strike ended that they no longer had jobs.

Tensions are also running high in many workplaces as Steelworkers off the job for more than a year, in some instances, reclaim their places in the company.

Sullivan said a “high volume” of grievances has been filed by the union on behalf of members in the six weeks since the new contract was accepted and Steelworkers began returning to work.

Under the terms of the return-to-work protocol signed by the two sides, Vale had six weeks to call Steelworkers back to their jobs.

Grievances have been filed relating to a number of issues, said Sullivan — such as discipline, hours of work, shift schedules and paid lunches.

In some cases, union members have complained that personal belongings such as tools and gear was missing when they returned to their operations.

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The month of May has been designated by United Steelworkers Local 6500 in Canada as “anti-scab” month, a reference to the strikebreakers that the Brazilian mining company Vale is using in efforts to break a ten-month strike in the provinces of Ontario and Labrador/Newfoundland.

Some 200 steelworkers and other supporters rallied in Queen’s Park, Toronto, on 29 April to support introduction of legislation in the Ontario Parliament that would outlaw the use of striker replacements during economic strikes or lockouts. Many of the steelworkers arrived after long bus rides from Sudbury, Ontario, where they experience first-hand the family hardships and community strife brought on by the bargaining intransigence of a company content to use scabs to regain partial production.

On 29 April, the Private Member’s Bill that again would prohibit companies operating in Ontario from using scabs passed a first reading in Parliament by a 32-3 vote. The bill was introduced by New Democratic Party legislators France Gelinas and Peter Kormos.

Somewhat surprisingly, 21 members of the ruling Liberal Party joined with eight New Democrats and three Progressive Conservatives to pass this first reading. The bill must proceed through two more hearings before becoming law, and that could happen by year’s end. In Canada, most labour code is enacted at the provincial level.

Quebec and British Colombia are currently the only two provinces that prohibit the use of replacement workers during strikes or lockouts. In Ontario, such a prohibition was on the books from 1992 to 1995, but was repealed in 1995 when Liberals took control of the Parliament. Gelinas presented proof that legislation banning companies from using replacement workers leads to shorter strikes, less volatile picket-line scenes, less family and community stress, and overall, better labour-management relations.

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