BY KEITH LACEY
Another group of unionized Falconbridge Ltd. workers may be on the picket line Saturday.
Only a week after members of Local 598 of the Mine Mill/Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) ratified a new three-year deal to end a three-week strike, the members of Local 2020 of the United Steelworkers of America are preparing to hit the picket lines Saturday at 8 am.
The union representing 220 office, clerical and technical workers at Falconbridge?s Sudbury operations voted 96 per cent in favour of turning down the company?s contract offer Wednesday evening.
As was the case with the Local 598 dispute, the issue of contracting out remains the key stumbling block in negotiations, said union president Myles Sullivan.
?The company wants to weaken the contract language on contracting out and if we give in they?d basically be able to contract out any of our jobs at
any time and we?re obviously not going to let that happen,? said Sullivan.
?The ball is completely in their court. They know we?re not going to accept that offer, but we are prepared at any time and want to get back to the
bargaining table. We?re waiting for their call, but we?re not too confident it?s going to come.?
Another key issue relates to overtime, said Sullivan. The company wants to limit the amount of overtime any employee can accumulate in one year to 104 hours, said Sullivan.
Pensions are based on hours worked, and the union has been downsized so badly over the past three years all the work that needs to be done can only be accomplished by the membership working overtime, said Sullivan.
?When we signed our last deal three years ago, we had 325 members and now we?re down to about 210,? said Sullivan. ?We?re skin and bones right now, but the company wants all the work done and we can?t get it done unless we work lots of overtime because we just don?t have enough people.?
The union represents job classifications such as engineering, geology, accounting, ordering and purchasing, payroll and warehousing.
When a plant breaks down, members of Local 2020 are called in to fix things and the company wants things done in a hurry, said Sullivan.
Falconbridge vice-president of mining Allen Hayward issued a news release Wednesday stating the company?s offer is fair and balances the needs of the employees with those of the company, while reflecting the competitive nature of the mining industry.
Falconbridge director of communications Dale Coffin said management believes it presented a good offer and is disappointed the membership didn?t accept it.
No new talks are scheduled.
