Diamonds continue to flow despite Ekati strike
November 04, 2005
There's no movement in the strike that involves the people who service heavy equipment at the Ekati Diamond mine.
More than 1,000 hourly employees of Finning Canada in Alberta and the Northwest Territories walked off the job three weeks ago .
The members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers are striking against proposals to contract out more of their work.
A Finning management team has replaced the 80 unionized workers at Ekati.
Four other union members remain on the job at the mine's power house because they've been deemed essential workers.
A spokesperson for Ekati says Finning continues to meet the terms of its contact with the mine, meaning that diamond production isn't suffering.
Learn more about Canadian diamond mining at http://www.diamondsourceva.com/Education/DiamondIndustry/diamonds-canadian-diamonds.asp
At this point in time, this strike is very distressing for me and for a whole lot of others that work here at Ekati, whether employee or contractor. I really hope that BHP will do everything that they can to deflect a strike, because if they don't, there's a lot of people who will not be working for them no more, and you can only replace so much.
"BHP, come to an agreement, please!"
Posted by: T | April 05, 2006 at 04:58 PM