KGHM, a Polish-owned nickel and copper mining company, announced Wednesday it's cutting 87 jobs this spring from its Morrison Mine in Sudbury. Low nickel prices are being blamed.
The announcement from United Steelworkers Local 2020 comes just a week after the mining company announced 22 jobs were being eliminated at the mine on the north end of the Sudbury basin.
The union said the job cuts mean the mine will be going into care and maintenance mode. A skeleton crew will remain on site, dewatering and doing necessary repairs to the shaft until the mine reopens.
No timeframe for the shutdown has been given. Morrison Mine is located in Levack.
Myles Sullivan, area coordinator for Northeastern Ontario for Steelworkers Local 2020, who represents the affected workers, said the latest round of cuts will take effect in late March.
“I really feel for these folks," Sullivan said Wednesday. "This includes management at the company, as well.
“Some of these included retirement packages, but for many, this means they have to look for work, and those kinds of jobs are not in Sudbury. This could mean a major change for their families.”
This also means the KGHM bargaining unit is being cut to about 100 people. To put that into perspective, when nickel prices were high, the bargaining unit was around 500.
Nickel prices have been hovering around US $5 per pound for months, and have been slumping for about four years.
Sullivan is optimistic there will be a rebound in nickel prices in the near future. But until then, the industry will have to shoulder the slump in metal prices, which translates to production cuts and job losses.
In the meantime, he said the Steelworkers are asking those affected workers to keep safety in mind as they work for the next two and a half months.
“We know it's a lot to carry on their minds, knowing they have to find jobs again. But we want everyone to get home safe at the end of the day."
According to the KGHM website, the mine originally opened in 1915 and extracted nickel, copper and some precious metals from two shafts, Levack and Craig, until it closed in 1997.
KGHM acquired it in March 2002 and renewed production five years later. Exploration was carried out on the acquired property that resulted in the discovery of the Morrison deposit, rich in polymetallic ore with high-grade copper, nickel and precious metals.
