Against the backdrop of a sometimes-tumultuous relationship, Hudbay and its Flin Flon-Snow Lake unions are attempting to hammer out new contracts.
With less than three weeks before the current three-year deals expire, Rob Winton, vice-president of Hudbay’s Manitoba Business Unit, is hopeful.
“Bargaining between Hudbay and the seven unions representing our employees has begun with proposals being shared,” Winton said. “We are optimistic that a professional and business-focused round of negotiations will produce a mutually beneficial contract for the Manitoba Business Unit and our employees. The current collective agreements expire Dec. 31, 2014 and it is our intention to complete the process in a timely manner.”
But negotiators for Hudbay’s machinists’ union, IAM Local 1848, believe the talks thus far leave something to be desired.
“We have agreement on some existing letters [contained in the contract] as well as good discussion on others,” wrote IAM’s bargaining committee on the union’s website. “However these letters are tied to our language and economic proposals to which we received ‘NO’ answers. Hudbay informed us today that NO does not really mean NO. Their position is that NO actually means ‘rewrite your proposal’ and bring it back to us. We will not bargain with ourselves and told Hudbay such.”
The committee said it has put forth an “economic proposal [that] is geared at attracting and retaining skilled tradespeople, training apprentices, minimizing costly contracting out [and] ensuring Hudbay a prosperous, committed, skilled workforce.”
The committee said it gave its proposals to Hudbay on Dec. 2 but as of Tuesday had not received proposals or counter-proposals from the company.
The committee said it is due to meet with Hudbay again on Dec. 16.
A spokesperson for United Steelworkers Local 7106, the largest union at Hudbay, could not be reached for comment.
In a recent interview with The Reminder, the union’s president, Tom Davie, said the unions might have to make workplace safety an issue in bargaining.
“But we shouldn’t have to bargain safety positions or a better safety system for our members,” he added, citing what he felt were examples of safety not receiving the proper attention.
Although the Hudbay-union contracts expire on Dec. 31, the company and employees could, in the absence of new deals, agree to continue working under existing terms until new agreements are reached.
In the last round of negotiations with Hudbay, workers gave up no concessions while securing more pay along with other improvements over the life of the deal.
At the time Davie called it a “good bad contract.”
IAM was the last union to re-sign with Hudbay in 2012. At one point the then-176-member union threatened to go on strike even as Hudbay took the position that a strike would be illegal.
Hudbay has changed significantly since the last contracts expired. The company closed its ore-depleted Trout Lake mine near Flin Flon in mid-2012 but has since seen its Lalor and Reed mines near Snow Lake enter commercial production.
Hudbay is also investing significant dollars into its Constancia copper mine in Peru. The northern Manitoba unions do not cover employees of that project.
