With almost all of their colleagues now under contract, IAM Local 1848 members are vowing to remain on the picket line until Hudbay offers them a better deal.
IAM vice-president Blair Sapergia said a membership meeting last week showed “overwhelming resolve” to continue the strike.
“We are still holding the line with no end in sight,” Sapergia said Monday. “Every week now our members, Hudbay employees, are sacrificing for what is right.”
The comment came days after three more Hudbay unions – those representing electrical workers, boilermakers and carpenters – signed three-year contracts with the company.
Other than IAM, the only union without a new contract is the 18-member International Union of Operating Engineers Local 828, which heads to concilliation next week.
Disappointed
On its website, IAM said it was “disappointed” that three additional unions re-signed even though there was no deadline or “any kind of threatening repercussions.”
But IAM said it will respect the unions’ decisions, which meant more than 80 per cent of Hudbay’s unionized workforce is under contract until the end of 2017.
As IAM’s job action entered its 46th day yesterday, there were differing accounts as to how the strike has impacted Hudbay production in Flin Flon and Snow Lake.
As of June 5, Hudbay said production remained in line with targets for 2015. On Monday, IAM said operations were “nowhere near full production.”
Sources from within Hudbay’s Flin Flon operations have told The Reminder that the company is maintaining production in part by eating away at a stockpile
of ore.
In recent weeks, the same sources have estimated production is down by as little as 30 per cent or as much as 75 per cent, but several admitted it’s difficult to know for sure.
Hudbay will release its latest production results sometime after June 30. The results will include figures from Manitoba as well as the company’s massive new Constancia mine in Peru.
