In a continuing effort to maintain good relations with the public, representatives from Vale hosted their annual open house at the Thompson Recreational Community Centre on Nov. 4.
Outside of providing locals with a venue to ask them direct questions, this event also set up a number of family-friendly activities, including face painting, balloon sculpting, a public skate and free admission to Saturday’s Norman Northstars hockey game.
However, according to Ryan Land, Vale’s manager of corporate affairs, the company’s primary concern during this open house is to demonstrate a level of transparency and responsibility to the community, especially now that they’re projecting around 700 job losses by the end of 2018.
“I don’t think it’s a secret for anyone that we will be transitioning to mining and milling only after August of 2018, and that will necessitate the closure of our smelter and refinery,” said Land. “Earlier this year… we started the process of placing our Birchtree Mine on care and maintenance. That will happen by the end of the year. So, all told, it’s a significant reduction in the workforce.”
Because of this, Land said it was more important than ever to use this open house to promote initiatives like their new Workforce Adjustment Services.
This project was developed by Vale, the United Steelworkers Local 6166, and the province of Manitoba to support affected workers in a number of areas, including resume writing, job training, and connecting them with alternative employment opportunities.
This open house also showcased excerpts from Vale’s latest community report, which is available online.
According to this report, even though the worldwide demand for nickel is dwindling, Vale will continue with its mining and milling operations, and will spearhead different projects such as adding a concentrate load-out facility to the existing mill building.
“There will continue to be opportunities in the future, particularly in technical areas, trades areas, geologists, engineers, those specialized areas,” said Land. “But we won’t be doing process operator, labourer, entry-level hiring in the near term.”
In the lead-up to Saturday’s event, Land also addressed rumours surrounding a supposed “$40 million saving target” that Vale must meet by a certain date to ensure continued mining and milling in Thompson.
While Land admits they are taking steps to save money, he would not confirm the dollar figure and said there is no specific target date for completion.
“We recently challenged our employees to affect a ‘20% breakthrough’ either by improving productivity, or by reducing costs, or some combination of the two,” Land wrote in a Nov. 1 email to the Thompson Citizen. “We have confidence in our ability to meet the target and if there are future impacts to the business or the community we will communicate those accordingly.”
He concluded by writing “As it stands, there are no additional changes to our Manitoba operations planned beyond what we have previously communicated with regards to Birchtree Mine, the smelter, and the refinery.”
Despite the fact that this Nov. 4 open house occurred under very serious circumstances, Land said that this year’s event still attracted approximately 800–1,000 people and encouraged some very productive discussions.
“We actually got more questions, still, about our northern employment strategy. I had a couple of good conversations about some of the work we’ve been doing in the education system to make students more aware.”
Moving forward, Land maintains that Vale is committed to hiring northerners and being an integral part of the local community well into the future.
“For us, it’s really about the community now, making sure that people exercise active, genuine care for one another, as we go through what will be a challenging time,” he said. “And if we exercise active, genuine care, we will be all the better for it on the other side of August 2018.”
Workforce Adjustment Services are available at 7 Selkirk Avenue, Unit 105. Appointments can be booked by calling 204-778-6052 or by emailing employment consultants Kunal Mahajan (kunal@nmscouncil.ca) and Karen Amyotte (kamyotte@nmscouncil.ca).
