Ekati mine unfazed by strike

Three weeks into its first-ever strike, BHP Billiton‘s (BHP-N) 7-year-old Ekati diamond mine, about 300 km northeast of Yellowknife, N.W.T., appears to be holding up just fine.

In fact, the company says the mine is operating at full capacity and had its best week of production in eight months recently – during the second week of the walkout.

About 375 union members went on strike April 7, after negotiations between the company and the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) failed to come up with a first collective agreement.

The union isn’t convinced the mine had a banner week with fewer workers.

“BHP is full of something and it isn’t diamonds,” said Todd Parsons, president of the Union of Northern Workers component of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, in a press release. “The plain truth is that Ekati diamond production has been dropping for months and now that 400 workers are on strike, how could anyone in their right mind claim that production is going up?”

The company says it is not using replacement workers. With an overall workforce (including contractors) of about 2,000, BHP says that about a third of striking workers have crossed the picket lines, beefing up the workforce.

The union also disputes that figure, placing it at less than 40 workers, or about 10% of the bargaining unit that have returned to work.

“We are aware of our members that are supporting the strike effort,” Parsons says. “That’s easily done, considering we provide strike pay as a form of relief for our members, and we know who is actually applying.”

Negotiations had been ongoing for 14 months before the strike was called.

BHP says it rejected the union’s contract proposals because they were “in direct conflict” with the impact benefit agreements (IBAs) it has signed with local aboriginal groups regarding preferential employment and training as well as other issues, and with a socioeconomic agreement in place with the Northwest Territories government.

Twissell says the union’s demands with regard to seniority in particular would not allow the company to meet its IBA commitments.

“Until the union recognizes those issues, we believe a return to the table would not be productive,” says BHP spokeswoman Deana Twissell.About 53% of the bargaining unit and 39% of Ekati employees overall are aboriginal.

The union says the IBA issue is “smoke and mirrors.”

“Our bargaining demands in no way compromise (those) agreements,” Parsons says. “We had proposed a way to work within the parameters of the IBAs.”Other issues include wages, layoffs, the use of contractors and vacation time.

Parsons says there can be differences in pay between members of the union, who mainly work in operations, of up to $15,000 for the same job.BHP spokeswoman Deana Twissell says variations in pay are due to a worker’s job experience and other justifiable factors.

It’s not clear whose court the ball is in now.Twissell says that if the union comes forward with a “reasonable” offer, BHP is willing to negotiate.But the company doesn’t seem to be in any rush.

“We see more and more employees returning every day. Our production results were excellent last week, they’re good this week, we don’t expect that that will change, and we have every intention of carrying on business as usual as long as it takes.”Parsons says the union has asked the company to go back to the bargaining table.

“The employer’s response was that they’re doing fine without us,” he says, adding that he believes the company intends to break the union.

The union may already be broken, however.

An application for decertification of the union has been filed with the Canada Industrial Relations Board. To apply for decertification, more than half of the union’s members must support the action.

Accusations of making misleading and inaccurate statements have flown both ways over the past three weeks with allegations of “illegal union activity,” “shocking” secret emails and other contentious claims.

New Democratic Party MP Dennis Bevington, who represents the Western Arctic, has expressed support for the union, while the NWT & Nunavut Chamber of Mines criticized him for taking sides in the dispute.

The Ekati mine has consistently been named one of the top 100 employers in Canada.