Red Dog Mine Electricians Ask IBEW Local 1547 (Anchorage AK) to Represent Them

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Red Dog electricians want union

MANAGER: All 250 hourly workers must decide, not just 16 electricians.

By PAULA DOBBYN, Anchorage Daily News

(Published: January 15, 2005)

A group of electrical workers at the Red Dog mine near Kotzebue wants to join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and Teck Cominco, the Canadian company that runs the world's largest zinc mine, objects.

As a result of the dispute, the National Labor Relations Board held three days of hearings in Anchorage this week to gather testimony and evidence before deciding whether the employees can hold a union election.

The labor board must decide whether the electricians and instrument maintenance employees form a distinct work unit. If so, they'll be allowed to hold an election. But if the board decides that their work duties blend with that of other mine employees, then they may not be able to vote.

"We're optimistic about getting the unit and we're real optimistic about winning the election," Jake Metcalfe, general counsel for Anchorage-based IBEW Local 1547, said Friday.

Red Dog's general manager, Rob Scott, said employees have the right to decide whether they want to organize. But the size of the electrical and instrumentation unit is small, and it doesn't constitute its own separate work group, he said. The IBEW should have to organize all the hourly workers, some 250 people, not just the 16 electricians, Scott said.

"It's a question of the working relationship with the other departments. The E and I group is not an independent group that doesn't have interrelationships with other departments. In our mind, it would be inappropriate to be a separate bargaining unit," Scott said, speaking from the Deering high school, where he was meeting with community members.

Metcalfe disagreed. The electrical workers have a distinct craft that sets them apart from other employees, he said.

But if the labor board rules in favor of Teck, the IBEW will try to organize the majority of the Red Dog work force, Metcalfe said. Some 350 people work at the massive open-pit mine. Organizers would have to get at least 50 percent of roughly 250 hourly employees to win an election.

"We would have to run a bigger campaign," he said. "We would do that."

Three primary factors are driving the union push: wages, pension and safety concerns, Metcalfe said.

Journeymen electricians who are IBEW members on average earn nearly $7 an hour more than the top Red Dog electrician, Metcalfe said. Pension seems to be an even bigger issue. At Red Dog, there's a "bubble of baby boomers who are getting closer to retirement age," he said.

"We've got one of the best pension programs in the state," Metcalfe said.

Jim Utley, Teck's vice president for human resources, said from Vancouver that his company offers an attractive wage and benefit package. Utley also said the company has "responded constructively" to issues employees have brought up. He didn't provide specifics.

If a union election was successful, it's hard to say at this point how it would affect Red Dog operations, Scott said. But if, as a result of collective bargaining, the scope of the work electricians do is narrowed, "that would be a concern," he said.

Prior efforts to unionize Red Dog workers have failed, Scott said. He didn't recall how many attempts have been made or which unions were involved. This is the first time a union has managed to get 30 percent of a work group to sign union cards, enough to trigger an election or a hearing before the National Labor Relations Board, he said.

During the hearings in Anchorage this week, the labor board's resident officer, Norm Hayashi, gathered facts from employees and management under oath. He'll the send evidence to the board's Seattle office, where regional director Richard Ahearn will make a decision next month, according to Ahearn. Briefs from lawyers for the IBEW and Teck are due on Jan. 24, Metcalfe said.

The union organizing effort has "changed discussion around the coffee pot in the morning," Scott said.

"That's fair enough," said Scott.

Daily News reporter Paula Dobbyn can be reached at pdobbyn@adn.com or 257-4317

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1282415.htm