Voisey’s Bay nickel mine strike ends

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Workers at the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine have voted 88 per cent in favour of a new contract with Vale, ending a bitter 18-month strike.

Boyd Bussey, a spokesman for the United Steelworkers, said Monday that the new five-year deal provides wage and pension increases, a new bonus system and improvements to health and safety.

"Our members are returning to work with their heads held high," he said in a release. "They stood up for their families and their communities and fought for what they believed in."

The union and Brazilian mining company struck a tentative deal last Wednesday with the help of a provincial mediator.

Wayne Fraser, the union’s director for Atlantic Canada and Ontario, said the work stoppage "was unnecessarily provoked and prolonged by a giant multinational corporation."

"Our members deserve to be proud for standing up to this foreign corporation and for finally achieving a fair deal," he said in a release.

The contract takes effect immediately and will expire in January 2016.

Bussey said Vale wanted a three-year deal but the union pushed for the "stability" of a longer term.

He said the roughly 120 workers will be recalled within the next few days but it could take up to seven weeks before every worker is back on the job, he said.

The union, in its release, said the contract provides a $4,000 return-to-work bonus for workers – $2,000 to be paid immediately and the rest to come after three months.

Wages will also increase by $1 an hour over the term of the contract, plus annual cost-of-living increases, and a new on-site bonus worth 10 per cent of a worker’s base wage rate.

The deal also increases Vale’s contribution to the defined-contribution pension plan to eight per cent of base salary from six per cent, and other benefits.