After a town hall style meeting, which was shown on Vale Inco's intranet system and at various places at Manitoba Operations on May 6, Vale Inco announced that the nickel bonus will be making a comeback at Manitoba Operations.Subsequently, both the United Steelworkers Local 6166 and Vale Inco Manitoba Operations sent out releases or statements to the Thompson Citizen confirming that the nickel price bonus will be reinstated for hourly paid employees at a rate of $7.29 per hour. The bonus payments will be made on May 20.
Company spokesman David Markham says, "Each hourly employee will receive a lump-sum payment equal to the number of hours worked during the quarter." For an employee working no overtime that could amount to a gross of around $3,000 with an after-tax net of around $1,700, depending on their tax bracket and other individual factors.
A Vale Inco bulletin said that on May 5, after the close of the markets, Vale announced net earnings of (US) $1.6 billion in the first quarter of 2010.
Markham says that as part of the collective bargaining agreement that Vale Inco has with hourly employees in Manitoba, the nickel bonus is paid whenever the operations achieve "positive operating earnings."
Murray Nychyporuk, president of the United Steelworkers Local 6166, says he's happy for the membership that the nickel bonus has been reinstated, but that some of the membership is also suspicious of the entire situation.
"The membership has had a hard time understanding why they weren't receiving a nickel bonus, because Vale Inco hasn't really explained the business case or why they haven't received it - all they've explained is that there was a loss," he explains. "The membership was also frustrated about why Vale was reporting consecutive quarterly losses but could still be in business."
The company hadn't paid a nickel bonus here in almost two years, since the second quarter of 2008. The price of nickel on the London Metal Exchange (LME) May 7 was about $10 per pound.
Although the reinstatement of the nickel bonus is good news, Nychyporuk says it wasn't strictly positive messages that came from the town hall meeting, which featured Tito Martins, Vale Inco's president and chief executive officer. He says it's clear from a statement made by Martins, in which he says Manitoba Operations will be offered the same deal Vale Inco offered its Ontario Operations in Sudbury when it comes to bargaining time in September 2011, that Vale Inco already has a firm position before negotiation even starts.
Mediated talks over Sudbury held in Toronto broke down again May 6. The USW has been on strike there since last July 13. The almost 10-month old strike has turned into the longest, bitterest mining dispute in Sudbury's long labour history, recently eclipsing a nine-month strike from Sept. 15, 1978 until June 7, 1979.
"In Canada there's something called collective bargaining, and it's not about taking a position a year and a half before you get to the table," Nychyporuk explains. "It's unreasonable for one side to go into collective bargaining and try to take everything away with huge concessions."According to Nychyporuk, he wasn't shocked that Martins would announce the company was taking such a position. He is hopeful, however, that the "harmonious relationship" the Local 6166 has enjoyed with Vale Inco in the past will continue, citing it will take hard work, lots of effort and bargaining.
