As workers and residents breathe a sigh of relief that the partial strike at Hudbay is over, new details of the job action – and the agreement that resolved it – have emerged.
In a news release, Ian Morland, an international representative with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), said the offer that won support from strikers stemmed from “five long days of intense bargaining” during the final week of August.
In the release, issued last week by IAMAW Canada, he touted the creation of an expedited arbitration process to resolve all outstanding grievances within 90 days.
The new arbitration process “was one of our demands from day one and we got it,” Morland said, adding that it “was instrumental in getting this approved.”
In June, Kenny Oliynyk of the local chapter of the union, IAM Local 1848, wrote on the union’s website that the grievance procedure was Local 1848’s “biggest concern.”
Oliynyk wrote that Local 1848 had “a range of outstanding grievances” around issues such as overtime and wrongful termination, and that at the time it was taking one or two years for a grievance to reach arbitration.
IAMAW Canada’s release noted that Local 1848 members will receive hourly raises of $1 in 2015, $1.75 in 2016 and $1.25 in 2017 – the same as members of Hudbay’s six other unions.
Other agreement highlights for Local 1848 include, among others, a bridge benefit raise of $1, hikes to vision care, paramedical services and short-term disability benefits, and wage increment increases for all apprentices.
Morland described the deal as “a tentative agreement we could bring back to the membership,” but on the Local 1848 website union president Rene Beauchamp used the term “strike settlement offer.”
The term “tentative agreement” is generally used when union negotiators agree to recommend an offer to their membership. “Settlement offer” is used when there is no such recommendation.
Meanwhile, in an interview two days before the strike ended, Hudbay president and CEO David Garofalo said the company had sustained Flin Flon-Snow Lake production “through replacing our mining fleet using rentals when we needed to” during the job action.
“We’ve been able to sustain production,” Garofalo told Business News Network when asked about the strike. “Eighty-eight per cent of our workforce actually signed…new three-year agreements.”
Back in Flin Flon, MLA Clarence Pettersen took time this week to express his satisfaction that the strike is now over.
“I’m very happy that it is ended and I’d like to say that I was involved on both sides,” he told the Flin Flon and District Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, Sept. 8.
“My job, as you know, as the MLA, is to represent everybody.
“It was my job to see that the strike is over as quickly as possible, and I got involved because of that, because I know it wasn’t good for the town to be under those situations. So I’m glad that it’s over and I hope that means that there’s no negative comments in the paper and we can move on from there.
“I said right from the beginning, the strike was hard not only on the strikers, not only on the company, but also on the community, and I’m very glad to see that it has ended.”
