Ontario’s premier and Labour minister said Wednesday they would like to see Vale Inco and striking Steelworkers return to negotiations, but have no plans to ban the use of replacement workers.

On Wednesday, Premier Dalton McGuinty also said he would prefer it if Vale Inco did not hire replacement workers in Sudbury.

“To be perfectly clear, we strongly urge and encourage the employer not to hire replacement workers,” McGuinty told the legislature.

“It is not the kind of thing that we, in our government, would do. In fact, we specifically adopted that as a policy on our part.”

The premier’s staff later clarified he was talking about the government as an employer not hiring replacement workers.

Later, outside the legislature, Labour Minister Peter Fonseca refused to consider banning replacement workers, and urged both sides to return to the bargaining table.

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614 days.

On a makeshift wooden sign affixed to a post, striking workers at Engineered Coated Products keep a tally of the number of days they’ve been off the job.

For 20 months, the workers, initially about 80 and now an estimated 60, have been camped outside the Elgin Street company as busloads of replacement workers are brought in daily to keep the packaging plant operational.

There has been no negotiation between the workers, represented by the United Steelworkers union, and the company since last July when the two sides met with a government conciliator.

And it seems unlikely they will be talking any time soon.

“It takes a toll,” admitted Rick Willson, a 33-year employee at ECP. “There’s nobody here to help.”

The strike began on Aug. 23, 2008 when Saul Marques, secretary- treasurer for United Steelworkers, Local 1-500, said the company demanded workers take a 25% wage cut, along with a cut in benefits and changes to their pension plan. The company, said Marques, also wanted to implement “continental” 12-hour shifts that would have resulted in job losses.

The workers, who earn between $17 and $23 an hour, had offered to take a 12% pay cut and other concessions in a three-year deal.

“The company wants us to agree to a 25% wage decrease or they won’t even talk,” said Marques. “It’s blackmail. Collective bargaining is supposed to be an exchange of facts. They’ve never provided us with any information.

“It’s been long enough. It’s time for the company to tell us their intent.”

ECP is part of the Intertape Polymer Group, which operates 10 plants in North America. The company bought the Brantford plant several years ago.

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