CANADA: FALCONBRIDGE SUDBURY WORKERS VOTE FOR STIKE MANDATE.
8 Jul 2000 07:03GMT
TORONTO, July 7 (Reuters) - Workers at Falconbridge Ltd.'s nickel-copper operations in Sudbury, Ontario, have voted overwhelmingly in favour of giving their union negotiators a strike mandate, a union official said on Friday.
More than 97 percent voted in favour. The official said about 85 percent of the 1,200 unionized workers voted over four days, concluding late Thursday night.
The mandate gives the workers the legal right to strike on August 1, when the current three-year contract expires.
If no deal is reached by 8 a.m. August 1, unionized employees at Falconbridge's Sudbury division will strike immediately, said Tom Dattilo, a spokesman for the Canadian Auto Workers union, which represents the workers.
The union and the company continue to meet daily over key issues such as contracting out work, wages, pensions and job security. The issues are similar to those raised in negotiations earlier this year for a new contract for 3,300 workers at Inco Ltd.'s nickel mining and milling complex in Sudbury. That contract was settled in a last-minute deal on May 28 without an strike.
Dattilo said Inco's contract agreement would not be a blueprint for talks at Falconbridge.
Inco workers negotiated an increase in pensions and a signing bonus of C$2,000. As a way of charting through the choppy issue of strong nickel prices, Inco offered the workers a compensation formula for profit-sharing, something Dattilo's union would like to avoid.
"We don't think it's a good deal for the workers. We like to negotiate our wage increase. We don't control the profits and how they're calculated, so why would we buy into that," Dattilo said.
"Traditionally, in the mining industry, Falconbridge and Inco try to follow each other's pattern or agreements. So I imagine Falconbridge will be looking at the Inco agreement. I wasn't too impressed with the Inco agreement," he said.
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