Horne smelter perseveres despite strike

Noranda says it can sustain output at its Horne copper smelter in Rouyn-Noranda, Que., at 70% of capacity even though striking workers have rejected its latest offer of a 3-year contract.

More than 500 unionized production and maintenance workers walked off the job in mid-June after the union and management failed to agree on terms of a new contract. The old contract expired in February.

Strikers recently voted 73% against Noranda’s latest offer of a wage increase of 9.6% and a pension increase of 12.5% over three years.

However, as company spokesman Helene Gagnon says, “the capacity rate has been sustained for three months now and sometimes exceeded, and there is no indication it can’t be sustained.”

The smelter was shut for three weeks in mid-August to allow non-union employees to take a holiday. Since their return, some 120 workers have been operating in shifts to run the plant 24 hours a day.

Horne is expected to produce 148,000 tonnes of anode copper in 2002, down from 188,000 tonnes in the previous year.

Before the strike, Horne was operating at full capacity. It treats high-margin complex feed, and copper- and precious-metal-bearing recyclable materials. Throughput capacity is 850,000 tonnes.

The strike has also affected output of copper cathode at Noranda’s CCR refinery, outside Montreal, which processes the anode produced at Horne.

CCR’s output for 2002 had been revised down to 248,000 tonnes since the strike began, Gagnon says. Capacity in 2001 was 360,000 tonnes. Production at CCR has also been hit by the closures of the Murdochville copper mine in 1999 and the Gasp smelter earlier this year. The refinery is now operating at two-thirds of capacity, or 55%.