Vale says any recent job losses at its Manitoba Operations are the result of normal business operations rather than the result of strategic cuts in response to market forces or the closure of the smelter and refinery by the end of 2018.
“Any recent activity relating to employee attrition is part of our regular business as a large employer, rather than something that is connected to the move to a single furnace, the current state of the commodities market, or our transition to mining and milling in 2018,” said Manitoba Operations manager of corporate affairs and organizational development Ryan Land in response to an inquiry by the Thompson Citizen. “On average, we see more than 100 employees leave our Manitoba Operations each year due to voluntary and involuntary terminations, retirement and transfers. This said, we anticipated that we would be able to offset at least some of the impact of the move to a single furnace through normal attrition, and this is proving to be the case.”
When asked if reports of people being stopped by security at the Vale gates and instructed to go to the office to pick up their personal belongings after being terminated were accurate, Land said that, while he couldn’t comment on individual cases, that procedure would be considered routine in the case of someone being terminated or having their job eliminated. He also noted that, with the nickel market as it is right now, Vale wouldn’t necessarily fill a job left vacant as a result of a resignation or termination unless it made sense to do so from a business perspective.
Vale confirmed earlier in October that some jobs in Manitoba Operations would be lost as a result of the smelter being reduced to a single-furnace operation beginning in 2017 but the company hopes that the transition will affect fewer than 35 employees due to reduced hiring this year as well as retirements and resignations.
The reduction is a result of less external feed from the Voisey’s Bay, Newfoundland plant being available as the Long Harbour processing plant ramps up operations, the company said.
Land said at that time that shutting down one furnace would reduce the overall workforce plan of 1,500 for Manitoba Operations by about 70 positions but noted that the current number of actual workers was less than 1,450 and after the second furnace is shut down, the projected number of employees would be 1,428.
