Will they or won't they?

By CHANSE WATSON

Managing Editor

MULLAN — The longest mining strike in Silver Valley history may finally be coming to an end, as the deadline for union members to cast their votes on a new labor contract approaches.

Miners of the United Steelworkers Union 5114 chapter have until Friday to mail-in their votes and decide whether or not they will accept a tentative labor contract that was agreed upon by their leadership and Hecla Mining Company.

If accepted, which requires a simple majority vote of 50% plus 1, USW 5114 miners will be on their way back to work at the Lucky Friday Mine in Mullan after being on strike for more than 1,000 days.

The tentative labor contract agreement was publicly announced on Nov. 7 by Hecla President and CEO Phillips S. Baker Jr., during the company’s Third Quarter Financial Results conference call.

“While neither side got all that it wanted, we think this agreement is consistent with agreements that other North American mines (have), unionized or not, and puts the Lucky Friday on a path toward long-term success,” he said.

Available on Hecla’s website for personal viewing, the 30-page tentative agreement covers a myriad of different labor items; many of which have been in contention between the two since before the strike began.

Among the many items argued over by both sides, Baker Jr. mentioned a few during the conference call that Hecla conceded on to make this most recent deal happen.

“The quid pro quo that we put to them was generally a better compensation package for them, particularly for the skill trades,” he said. “We had a lot of difficulty attracting skill tradesmen, this helps alleviate that. That would be the primary thing, but we ended up giving concessions on holidays and medical benefits. There’s just a variety of things.”

According to Article 6 in the tentative agreement which pertains to wages, the base pay for all employees (regardless of Tech Level or years employed) would be higher than what was pitched by Hecla on Jan. 11, 2017, in their “last, best, and final” offer.

For example, the Jan. 11 offer had a T1 Entry Laborer making a base wage of $17 an hour in their first three years on the job. The newest agreement has that same T1 Entry Laborer making $19.85 an hour in their first year, $20.20 in the second year and $20.50 in the third. While the specific amount of increased wages shown in this particular example does not apply to the other Tech Levels (i.e. raise amounts differ from position to position), it does reflect the general increase in base pay across the board.

As for the issue of vacations and holidays, discussed in Article 7, the tentative contract has some noteworthy differences compared to the “last, best, and final.”

The biggest change is the addition of more “length of employment” levels that determine how many vacation days are allotted per year.

For example, after one year of employment, an employee would be allotted 81 hours of vacation to use in their second year under the new deal. When that employee completes three years, their vacation hours would jump to 114 to use in their fourth and fifth years, then it would increase again to 131 hours if they made it to six years completed.

The January contract offered 80 hours of vacation after one year of employment and did not increase again (120 hours) until the completion of the fifth year. If that mark was reached, the next hour increase (160 hours) wasn’t attainable until after the completion of year 10.

The new deal essentially lowers the amount of time needed to get more vacation hours across the board, capping out on both at 30 years or more of employment.

While a description of medical plans are included in both the new tentative agreement and the “last, best, and final,” this issue was actually one of the few that was agreed upon by both parties long ago.

Boiled down, USW 5114 and Hecla agreed upon set premium percentages that are based on which plans the employee chooses to have. The agreed upon premium percentages are higher than what employees were paying under the old 2010 contract, but are not as high as what Hecla pushed for in the early days of negotiation.

While these aforementioned contract items have points of disagreement between the two sides, the biggest sticking point by far has been the implementation of a job selection system in the mine.

Until this most recent tentative agreement was reached, USW 5114 leadership refused to sign anything that did not have the “bid system” included in it.

Under this system, which has been used in the past at the Lucky Friday, the senior miners essentially had the power to assign personnel in the mine. Senior miners had the ability to decide which stope they would work in and who they would work with in that stope. If a miner wished to change jobs or locations, the decision fell to the senior miners — not management.

According to the tentative agreement though, it appears that Hecla’s new “progression system” will be used at the Lucky Friday going forward if it is approved by the USW 5114 membership.

The implementation of the progression system would allow management (not the senior miners) to decide who works with who and where. Under this system, Luke Russell, Hecla’s vice president of External Affairs, explained in a previous interview that employees would receive higher wages when they progress to higher Technician (Tech) levels by increasing their skills.

Essentially, the progression system puts more of an emphasis on skill than time employed.

Detailed in an accompanying document to the tentative agreement titled, “Strike Settlement Agreement,” both the company and union have also agreed on five separate items. These items address the process of returning to work, future conduct of both sides regarding the strike, treatment for conduct of employees during the strike and a ratification bonus.

In a nutshell, Hecla and USW 5114 would agree to essentially “forgive and forget.”

After ratification, both sides would “refrain from public disparagement of each other” and promise no adverse action for conduct relating to the strike (i.e. union miners cannot be punished for striking and current employees cannot be punished for crossing the picket line).

On Hecla’s side of things, they would be responsible for rolling out the year-long ramp-up of the Lucky Friday which involves contacting employees, assigning positions, setting up an inspection of the mine and conducting physicals. As an incentive to pass the tentative agreement, the company has also agreed to provide all USW 5114 Lucky Friday employees on the current employment roster with a $1,000 ratification bonus. This means that even if a former employee does not plan on coming back to the Lucky Friday, but is still on the roster, they will receive the bonus if the agreement passes.

On the union side, USW 5114 would agree to remove all picket material that was placed during the strike, cease its corporate-level protests, and waive the provision in the agreement for up to 60 days that restricts supervisors and other employees from doing bargaining unit work.

The tentative agreement documents relating to the Lucky Friday Mine labor strike are available for viewing at www.hecla-mining.com.

All stories written by the News-Press relating to the saga can be found at www.shoshonenewspress.com.