A large majority of striking Voisey’s Bay nickel mine workers in Labrador have voted in favour of a settlement proposed by an industrial inquiry commission.
Eighty per cent of the 130 striking workers said the proposed settlement is acceptable.
But that doesn’t mean the 18-month strike is over. The mine’s owner, Brazil-based Vale, said it can’t support the settlement proposed by the commission. Last week, Vale said it will only accept a deal negotiated directly with the union.
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The Industrial Inquiry Commission on the Voisey’s Bay labour dispute is overwhelmingly damning of Brazilian mining giant Vale.
If Vale does not accept the commission’s recommendations to settle the 17-month strike, the Newfoundland and Labrador government must act immediately in the best interests of our province’s working families, the United Steelworkers (USW) union says.
“The inquiry commission’s report is unequivocal in its conclusions,” says USW staff representative Boyd Bussey. “The report confirms that the union made considerable efforts to reach a settlement, but those efforts were not reciprocated by Vale.”
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Brazilian miner Vale said on Friday that a government report on a 17-month strike at Vale’s Voisey’s Bay nickel mine in Eastern Canada reflects an “incomplete analysis” and that it will not agree to a contract expiration date proposed in the report.
Vale said that the report, which was ordered in October by the government of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and released on Friday, was too rushed to be a full inquiry into the issues behind the labor dispute.
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Striking Voisey’s Bay workers are heading back to the bargaining table with Vale in the new year.
Last week, the government released its report on Phase 1 of the industrial inquiry into the labour dispute to both sides, who are required to provide a response by mid-January.
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Premier Danny Williams is giving both sides in the 14-month-old Voisey’s Bay strike two weeks to come up with an agreement.
If there’s no resolution by that deadline, the premier will create an industrial inquiry commission to settle the dispute between Vale and the United Steelworkers, Local 9508.
“This situation has gone unresolved for far too long, and the impact upon the communities involved is not acceptable,” said Williams in a statement.
“If the two sides do not resolve the situation and finalize an agreement within the next two weeks, I will ask the minister of human resources, labour and employment to appoint an industrial inquiry commission.”
Nine days of talks led by provincially appointed mediator Bill Wells broke off Sunday night with each side blaming the other for the impasse.
Williams thanked Wells for his efforts to broker a deal.
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Both sides in a long-running strike at Voisey’s Bay Nickel’s mine in northern Labrador have adjourned talks for a week.
Independent mediator Bill Wells has been working with mining giant Vale and the United Steelworkers union to resolve a strike that started in August 2009.
Neither side is commenting on whether anything has been accomplished since Wells entered the talks earlier this month.
The Newfoundland and Labrador government hired Wells to help break an impasse that has kept the two sides apart, even after a similar Vale strike in Ontario ended after one year on the picket lines.
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The Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) is renewing its support for United Steelworkers (USW) on the Vale Inco picket line in Voisey’s Bay, Labrador with a donation of $3,000 to the USW District 6 strike fund.
This strike is about to enter its 15th month and is now the longest-ever labour dispute in the history of the mining operations in Canada that were previously owned by Inco.
Until July, when the Brazil-based mining corporation finally settled with its employees in Port Colborne and Sudbury, Ontario, 3,000 USW members had been on strike for nearly a year because they refused to accept deep concessions.
“Just last week nurses united with workers from across Ontario to block scabs from entering an Engineered Coated Products plant in Brantford where United Steelworkers members have been fighting for good jobs for two years,” said ONA President Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN. “Our three-day blockade was successful at forcing that employer back to the bargaining table.”
“There’s no good reason that workers anywhere should have to go without work for so long just to maintain the middle-class standards that their parents and grandparents achieved,” said Haslam-Stroud. “Registered nurses in Ontario call on Vale Inco to start negotiating a fair deal with its employees in Voisey’s Bay today.”
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A spokesman for the United Steelworkers Union says he’s not surprised by Vale print ads criticising the union’s role in the Voisey’s Bay strike. The ad outlines several financial proposals, and says the union doesn’t understand the math involved. But Boyd Bussey says one of the company’s tactics since the beginning of negotiations has been to misrepresent the facts instead of returning to the bargaining table. He says his math is dead on, and Vale’s math is wrong. He says the company needs to give up this kind of tactic. He says it’s intimidation, and everytime the union makes statements in the press, Vale charges the union. He says they are making the union spend its money and are trying to bust it, instead of coming to the table and negotiating a fair deal.
The strike has been ongoing for more than a year, and Bussey says there is no end in sight. He says he’s asked Danny Williams to get involved. He says Williams is supposed to be looking at alternatives and getting back to the union. He says to this date, the company has not shown any interest in returning to the bargaining table.
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A long-running labour dispute at the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine in northern Labrador has spilled over into the courts.
Darren Cove, president of the United Steelworkers local at Voisey’s Bay, said he was served Monday with documents in a civil lawsuit.
Cove said a statement of claim filed by Vale alleges that Cove defamed the company when he recently said it was treating its workers like second-class citizens.
About 200 Steelworkers members in Labrador have been off the job since early August in 2009, in a strike over wages and benefits.
Cove said lawyers for the Steelworkers have told him they have never before seen an employer use such a tactic in a labour dispute.
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Talks between the United Steelworkers in Voisey’s Bay and Vale Inco aimed at finding common ground have failed, according to radio station VOCM.
The station says Steelworkers spokesman Boyd Bussey claimed the union offered to modify its monetary proposals to kick start talks, but the company insisted on concessions to the nickel bonus to restart discussions.
The station quotes Bussey as saying the government-appointed conciliators adjourned the meetings.
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