A union leader plans to publicly ask each member of Flin Flon city council for his or her stance on replacement workers after council collectively declined to take a position.
While the city cannot prevent the use of replacement workers in mining, a federally regulated industry, Blair Sapergia believes council should still take a stand against them.
“I’m a bit surprised that council didn’t have a position on replacement workers just given the fact of how disruptive it would be to this community,” says Sapergia, vice-president of the IAM Local 1848 union at Hudbay.
Sapergia attended the April 7 council meeting and asked if council had a position on replacement workers.
Coun. Tim Babcock, sitting as mayor in Cal Huntley’s absence, said at the time council had no such position but “I’m sure we’ll be talking about it.”
When Sapergia attended this week’s council meeting to ask if those talks had taken place, Huntley said there hadn’t been any discussion.
Won’t involve
Later, when The Reminder sought clarification on council’s stance, Huntley said council would not involve itself in the matter.
“I would suggest that our commitment in this community is to the health, welfare and safety of the citizens in the community,” he said. “We can’t get involved in other people’s business. We’re here for everybody that lives in the community, and that’s, I think, our position.”
Added Huntley: “If it was something that we were doing in our business, then you’d get a comment from us. But that’s not our position. Our position is health, welfare and safety of all the citizens in our community. That’s our concern and our commitment.”
Sapergia, who had to leave Tuesday’s council meeting before Huntley’s comments, was disappointed by the response.
“There’s no question that bringing in scabs is going to cause hardship on this community, is going to prolong any labour unrest or work stoppage that we have,” he said. “And how anybody that sits in an official capacity for this city thinks that it’s taking a position, I don’t get it. I mean, replacement workers have nothing to do with bargaining. They’re a tool to weaken the union and let the corporate greed take over.”
Sapergia, a heavy-duty mechanic, now intends to attend the May 5 council meeting and ask each of the seven members of council for his or her personal opinion on replacement workers.
Replacement workers have been a hot local topic since early April when Hudbay unions became aware of ads seeking underground heavy-duty mechanics to work at an undisclosed northern Manitoba location in the event of a work stoppage.
The ads did not identify the company for whom the mechanics would work, but the unions say they have no doubt it was Hudbay.
