Striking workers at Montana mine vote on contract
BILLINGS – Hundreds of workers from Stillwater Mining Co., the only U.S. producer of palladium and platinum, turned out to vote on a tentative new labor contract Monday, one week after going on strike over a rejected deal.
The local union president expressed optimism that members would approve the latest proposal.
“I can read the membership pretty good, and I’m confident that it will pass this time,” said Brad Shorey, of the Paper, Allied Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International union local 8-0001.
Company and union leaders met Friday to discuss workers’ concerns and announced over the weekend that a tentative new agreement had been reached, subject to member ratification. Members were voting Monday in Columbus, where the company has its headquarters. By late Monday morning, Shorey estimated that nearly 500 workers had shown up already.
Shorey said he didn’t expect that a tally would be released until early today. Officials said earlier in a statement that workers could be on the job Wednesday if the agreement is ratified.
The strike has affected between 850 and 900 workers from the company’s Stillwater Mine near Nye and the processing facilities at Columbus, but not its East Boulder Mine, officials have said.
John Stark, a vice president at Stillwater Mining, declined on Monday to discuss terms of the tentative agreement, saying that officials agreed not to discuss them. Union leaders have said that a pension was a leading concern for striking workers, but Stark refused to comment on whether or how that was addressed. He also would not discuss the tone of Friday’s talks, which came one day after a meeting of union members.
“We’ve got it out there,” Stark said of the agreement. “We’re hopeful we’ll get everybody back to work.”
Shorey said he didn’t feel comfortable getting into specifics before a deal was ratified. But he said the tentative agreement would be a three-year deal that he believes addresses many of the workers’ concerns, such as short-term disability.
While the pension issue was brought up during the meeting, Shorey said union officials got no commitment on it from the company.
“What we told them in the negotiations was that, that’s not going to go away,” he said. “But I’m satisfied that we covered the majority of the issues of the membership and that the company is going to – I’m hoping that the company is going to – take a different approach in dealing with this workforce in the future.”
On June 30, company and union officials announced a tentative labor agreement had been reached, subject to member ratification. It was turned down, and an extension of the previous contract expired last Monday, when the workers officially went on strike.
Last year, the company and MMC Norilsk Nickel closed a stock purchase agreement that gave the Russian metals giant controlling interest in the Montana company.
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