CBC reports this morning that, “The Newfoundland and Labrador government is expected to release a report Friday on the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine strike after acrimonious talks between the company and workers broke off again. About 130 nickel miners have been on strike since August 2009. Talks, which have been on and off since then, collapsed again on Thursday. …Both (Vale) and the United Steelworkers union blamed each other for the latest failure at the negotiating table.”
Reuters adds that, “Vale resumed partial production at Voisey’s earlier this year using non-union workers and outside contractors.”
Some of the nickel from Voisey’s Bay will be going to a plant currently being built at Long Harbour, which will result in the dumping of approximately 400,000 tonnes of tailings annually in nearby Sandy Pond, a 38-hectare freshwater lake.
With the nickel processing plant and the destruction of Sandy Pond scheduled to begin in 2013, the Council of Canadians will counter this by increasing our support for a legal challenge against the federal government on the Schedule 2 provision that allows this and by continuing other efforts to hold accountable one of the world’s biggest and most harmful mining companies, Vale.
For more on our campaign to save Sandy Pond, please go to http://canadians.org/water/issues/TIAs/sandy-pond.html.
