Falco restarts smelter

In the midst of a strike by 1,250 workers, Falconbridge (FL-T) has restarted its nickel smelter in Sudbury, Ont., at reduced capacity.

The smelter normally produces 5,400 tonnes of nickel anode per month but is now running at a reduced capacity of between 50 and 60%. Non-union replacement workers are operating the smelter using stockpiled ore.

The company hopes that by restarting the smelter, it can stave off declaring force majeure on nickel deliveries until September, when stockpiles run out. (Force majeure is a term used to protect companies when unforeseeable events keep them from fulfilling their contracts.)

The strike has already forced Falco to declare a partial force majeure on copper deliveries from its Norwegian smelter at Kristiansand. The company reduced European shipments to 1,600 from 2,600 tonnes per month.

Union spokesman Hemi Mitic says that by restarting the smelter, Falconbridge is “trying to demoralize and undermine the workers.”

Meanwhile, about 500 workers continue to picket outside the Sudbury operations. Both management and the union’s negotiating committee met last week after the company’s initial offer was rejected by a 97% vote. However, neither side has come back to the table.

The key issues in the stalemate are union representation, sub-contracting and seniority.

“For an organization of our size, we feel we have excess union representation,” says Falco spokesman Caroline Casselman. “Our [Sudbury] operations have scaled down and the number of employees has scaled down, but the union administrative organizational structure has not.”

However, Mitic insists this is a battle over new language in the collective agreement.

“The biggest issue is the company’s demand on the union to change a number of provisions in the collective agreement,” says Mitic, stressing that the new agreement was reduced to 97 pages from 185.

“The company simply rewrote [the collective agreement] and said, ‘Well, we think it means the same [as it did before]’, but there was no input from the union in the rewriting,” explains Mitic. “I think it will be a couple of months before the company comes to its senses and sits down and bargains a new collective agreement.”

Casselman admits there have been significant changes to the agreement but says they mostly involved editing and cleaning up the “archaic” language. And with the smelter operational again, she doesn’t see the two sides getting together soon.

“We are prepared to wait until there might be some energy or some movement heading back to the bargaining table,” she says. “We are in a holding pattern at this point.”