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 war of words continues between Essar Steel Algoma and United Steelworkers Local 2724.

Public talk is usually minimal during contract negotiations, but Essar Algoma and its salaried workers, who have been talking a new deal for the past six weeks, have gone public with their message three times in the past week.

A week ago it was Local 2724 issuing their view on the slow pace of negotiations following its strike authorization vote. Monday it was Essar Algoma putting out a “negotiations update” through its corporate Internet blog and late Tuesday afternoon it was 2724 responding to the company’s update.

Three-year contracts between Essar Algoma and its more than 3,000 unionized employees, represented by USW Local 2251 and Local 2724, expire in less than three weeks, in 17 days, at 12:01 a.m. Aug. 1.

Despite conflicting messages on what has transpired both the company and its salaried workers remain talking in a downtown Sault Ste. Marie hotel as bargaining crunch time approaches.

“The entire update is one of Essar trying to put a pretty face on some very ugly, regressive proposals,” said Ian Kersley, president of Local 2724, representing nearly 600 supervisory and technical personnel within Essar Algoma.

“The owners of Essar are trying to turn back the clock on employee rights.”

Essar’s message Monday was that it needs to “amend work terms” with its front-line supervisors, represented by 2724, as current contractual restrictions are restricting supervisory mobility and creating operating inefficiencies.

Company proposals for its salaried workforce, the blog lso contain some provisions for shared services and sharing tasks among the global Essar Group of companies, where it is most economical.

No current employee’s job would be affected by shared services, it stated, competitors use such a strategy to reduce costs … “what we are seeking is a level playing field.”

“We have made the company plenty of money in recent years under the existing language,” said Kersley, who added his membership was “extremely angry” with the company update.

“The steel market is dictating the company’s bottom line (a nearly $400 million loss this past fiscal year) not workforce performance … Their concerns can be addressed through existing language adjustments, wholesale change is not necessary.”

The shared services proposal, he said, is “simply exporting good-paying Canadian jobs offshore.”

Kersley claims that information technology work his membership should be doing is now being done in India, as well as some engineering, while out-of-country contract workers have been imported to Essar Algoma and are doing 2724 tasks.

“They say nobody will lose their job as a result of shared services but they cannot guarantee that you won’t be moved elsewhere within the organization to do another task,” said the 2724 president,

While he didn’t want to elaborate too much on bargaining issues, Kersley did say the company is seeking an additional eight hours a week out of its supervisors, from 40 to 48 hours a week, putting them “on call” for rest of the time, with no compensation for overtime.

“The bottom line is that the Ruia family (which controls the Essar Group conglomerate) and Essar bought Algoma Steel to make money and they are making it clear if it means taking away employees’ rights, curtailing their family life, and exporting jobs from the community, then that price must be paid in Sault Ste. Marie for Essar’s increased profit.”

While Local 2251, representing more than 2,500 hourly production, service, maintenance and clerical employees, endorsed an asset integrity agreement with the company last week, in the event of a labor disruption, Local 2724 did not.

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The negotiating committee for United Steelworkers Local 2724, representing more than 600 salaried supervisory and technical personnel inside Essar Steel Algoma Inc., is seeking strike authorization from its membership less than a month prior to the expiration of its three-year contract.

The local will conclude two days of special membership meetings Tuesday at the Days Inn.

The update meeting is scheduled to begin at noon, with strike authorization voting from 6 a.m. through 8 p.m. at 2724′s Days Inn office, while Monday evening’s meeting and vote was at the Marconi Hall.

A strike authorization vote is essentially a show of membership solidarity for its bargaining committee and puts the local in a legal strike position, if necessary, at the expiration of its contract.

Three-year contracts between the Sault Ste. Marie steel maker and its two unions, including Local 2251, representing more than 2,500 hourly production, maintenance, service and clerical employees, and Local 2724, expire at 12:01 a.m. Aug. 1.

As of Monday afternoon, the 2251 negotiating team had not yet called on its membership for strike authorization, but has called special membership meetings for Wednesday, at 9 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. at the Great Northern Hotel and Conference Centre, to discuss the company’s proposed asset integrity proposal in the event of a labour disruption.

The asset integrity proposal, according to Mike Da Prat, president of Local 2251, relates to staffing in such areas as “the coke oven batteries and other ancillary operations that need to be maintained and kept operating in the event of a labour disruption.”

During the last negotiations, in 2007, the company trained its more than 100 non-union personnel and hired contract workers to augment its non-union people, on operating tasks such as the coke ovens, utilities and material handling, as well as fire and flood patrolling throughout the steelworks.

While Da Prat says negotiations, which began with an exchange of proposals more than a month ago, on June 1, are “plodding along” the local’s website is reporting that 2251 submitted its monetary proposal to the company a week ago, on June 28.

Monetary proposals are traditionally one of the last items of discussion in the negotiating process.

“We are still awaiting the company’s response … I wouldn’t read too much into the proposal at this stage, there are still outstanding issues on the table,” said Da Prat.

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Toronto – The United Steelworkers (USW) and the National Union of Mine, Metal, Steel and Related Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSSRM) – known as Los Mineros – announced a joint declaration to create a cross-border commission to explore unification of  a potential union representing one-million industrial workers in Mexico, Canada, U.S. and the Caribbean.

In signing the declaration over the weekend, USW President Leo W. Gerard and Napoleon Gomez, general secretary for Los Mineros, jointly renewed the two unions “common commitment to democracy, equality, and solidarity for working men and women throughout North America and throughout the world.”

Citing a global strategic alliance signed in 2005, Gerard and Gomez said the declaration establishes a joint commission of five members from each of the two unions’ executive boards to propose “immediate measures to increase strategic cooperation between our organizations as well as the steps required to form a unified organization.”

The USW represents 850,000 workers in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, while Los Mineros represents about 180,000 in Mexico.

Both the USW and Los Mineros members have been under assault in lengthy mining strikes. The USW is in the 11th month of a strike in Canada against Vale Inco – a Brazilian mining giant with 3,500 nickel miners in Sudbury; and 1,100 Los Mineros copper miners are nearing three years on strike against Grupo Mexico in a small desert mining town called Cananea in northern Mexico.

The two unions condemned the “cowardly and brutal attack by Mexican federal police on the striking mineworkers and their families at Cananea, and on the family members of mineworkers at Pasta de Conchos.”

On Jun. 6, an estimated 2,000 federal and state police garbed in riot gear – backed by armed helicopters, armored personnel carriers and tear gas – forcefully evicted the striking miners while beating and injuring at least three Los Mineros leaders.

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