Giant workers vote on new contract

A first attempt by Giant Yellowknife Mines to reach a new contract agreement with members of the Timmins, Ont. steelworkers union, looks set to fail.

With a Dec 31 deadline approaching, the company doesn’t expect union members to accept a new two-year deal offering a 9% increase on a basic salary of $12.07 per hour starting Jan 1 and a further 6% increase on July 1, 1989.

Giant Yellowknife says the proposed contract also included a new benefits package with a provision for long-term disability payments and prescription glasses.

While the union negotiating committee agreed to put the contract to representatives for 650 hourly wage members of local 4,440 of the United Steelworkers of America, it was rejected earlier this month by a margin of 59%.

However, since the current contract doesn’t expire until July, negotiations will probably resume again this spring, says Moses Sheppard, a staff representative for the United Steelworkers Union.

Sheppard and Nick Resetar, Manager of Services at Giant Yellowknife Mines, Timmins Division, agree that the package was a good one but neither could say if the contract will be accepted by Dec 31.

“I don’t know how far apart we are at the moment but we feel there will eventually be an agreement, said Resetar. “We have always been able to settle our differences in the past.”

Giant Yellowknife’s Timmins operations have remained strike- free since 1982.