Doom and gloom, doom and gloom. Ah, how we’ve heard this all before.
I have worked for Hudbay (HBM&S) for 32 years. I commend Phillip Ricard on his recent, poignant letter to the editor, and find the recent “conversations” with Hudbay reps somewhat amusing.
Does anyone remember 1997 and then-HBM&S head Logan Kruger’s “town hall meeting” at the Community Hall ? I do. I can also remember this: Hudbay (HBM&S Co. Ltd., as it truly should be know) runs on a cycle.
Let’s look back in time, shall we: 1967, 1977, 1987, 1997, 2007 and now 2017. The immortal “doom and gloom,” or as Logan put it, “the sunset scenario.”
Since 1970, HBM&S has retired off personnel every 10 years as technology changed: 1970 (just before the strike), 1980 (zinc plant - gang cathode stripping and new main melting vessel in zinc casting plant), 1990 (zinc plant - new ZPL pressure leach), 2000 (new zinc plant cell house and 777 mine), 2010 (smelter shutdown and Lalor mine start-up), 2012 (shut down Trout Lake mine – an anomaly that came five years early), and now 2020.
I see a pattern here. At the top of each decade, we see the peak of metal prices and high stock values for HBM&S (Hudbay) while at the middle of each decade (1975, 1985, 1995, 2005, 2015) we see the metals market bottom out and low stock values.
So every 10 years at the top of the decade, the company retires off workers for technology changes, at the middle of each decade market/values drop and 90 per cent of the time, by the seventh or eighth year of the decade, they come with doom and gloom, asking for clawbacks, budget cuts and/or threats of closure, layoffs, etc. Coincidentally, 80 to 90 per cent of the time, the doom and gloom comes on the last year of our collective agreement.
In the late ’90s, Logan Kruger came to town and gave us the infamous town hall meeting, threatening to padlock the gates if HBM&S didn’t save $30 million in 18 months. The result: a 12-year (turned 15-year) labour agreement that put a stranglehold on the unions with two more three-year contracts with no pay raise and threats of layoffs.
During a City Hall informational meeting broadcast on local TV, I was one of many who stated I would be around for my retirement days. All the while, a well-paid HBM&S geologist told us all there was no more ore in the immediate area.
Once the contract was signed, wasn’t it amazing that HBM&S realized they were sitting on top of a massive ore body we now know as 777? How did that ore body appear out of nowhere? An ore body the geologist claimed didn’t exist.
Recently, I was part of the first group of workers in 2017 handed this latest “bad news.” We were told Hudbay needs a new anchor mine to sustain the current level of production. This may be true, but with OmniTrax cutting its rail service from three down to two days a week, it in fact does put stress on our local production levels. A lot of zinc and copper product does goes in and out on rail. Without regular rail service, this may be part of Hudbay’s issue on bringing in ore from outside sources.
Since Kruger’s revelations back in the ’90s, we’ve discovered that HBM&S has had access to and/or owned many potentially lucrative ore bodies in the immediate area, but for one reason or another, chose not to venture into a production phase.
Hudbay’s corporate-level employees get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, and for the upper echelon of management, millions, while employees in Flin Flon have to claw back a few dollars and cents to make a living and support our community and businesses.
The $15 million Hudbay claims it must save in the zinc plant is the lint below the pocket change for this company. I honestly believe the company is using this cost-cutting issue as a threat tool, whether real or not, to twist our unions’ arms. The zinc plant already runs at a bare minimal level of employees and equipment, producing some of the world’s best zinc.
Hudbay Flin Flon generated well over $700 million just in 2006-07 alone, which helped feed the Constancia project in Peru. For years we, Flin Flon-Snow Lake, were the company’s only operating facility, funding this massive undertaking in South America.
Our question for Hudbay is, “Why doesn’t Peru pay us back the $15 million we need?” Peter has paid Paul, why doesn’t Paul pay Peter back?
The tough times for the metals market are almost over. Metal prices are in a constant rise for the next three to six years. Hudbay is being touted as a number one choice in stock to buy right now by several market analysts, yet workers still have to beg for a nickel raise and slightly better medical coverage. Really?
