Yellowknife (Mar 29/06) - City council won’t take sides in the smoldering labour dispute between BHP Billiton and about 400 workers at its Ekati diamond mine northeast of Yellowknife.

Councillors rejected a request from union leaders at Monday’s committee meeting to condemn the use of replacement workers if the Ekati miners follow through with their April 7 strike date.

Instead, council directed Mayor Gordon Van Tighem to write a letter to Ekati management and the union, urging them to return to the bargaining table.

Several councillors warned that pre-strike rhetoric - including a suggestion the company could use replacement workers - was similar to 1992’s ultimately fatal dispute at Giant Mine that saw nine men murdered by a home-made bomb.

“We’ve had a bad experience with replacement workers,” councillor Blake Lyons said.

“We can predict what could happen. That’s an invitation to trouble.”

The union and Ekati management are scheduled to meet April 5 and 6 in an attempt to hammer out their first collective agreement. Workers are seeking annual wage increases, wage equity and job security among other items.

“It is important to maintain neutrality,” said Councillor Doug Witty, who was against any City Hall involvement. “We’re putting our nose where it doesn’t belong. When people do that, it tends to get cut off.”

Ekati vice-president Richard Morland said last week in a letter to employees the diamond mine would “continue to operate” during a work-stoppage.

That fuelled speculation the mine would use replacement workers and brought back memories of 1992, when nine strikebreakers were murdered while toiling 750-feet below Giant’s surface.

The man responsible for their deaths, Roger Warren, was upset that mine management had turned to replacement workers.

Union leaders Todd Parsons and Jean-Francois Des Lauriers invoked that deadly dispute in a letter to council.

Parsons heads the Union of Northern Workers. Des Lauriers is Northern branch vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

“We fear that BHP Billiton is preparing to bring in scabs,” they wrote to city council. “Knowing how devastating this practise is, and considering the tragic events associated with the Giant-Mine lockout of 1992..., we urge you to strongly and publicly condemn this practice.”

When contacted last week, the company would not comment on whether it planned to hire replacement workers.

At the committee meeting, Parsons said replacement workers would have a “devastating effect” on Yellowknife.

Lyons said city officials have an obligation to protect citizens from the fallout of an ugly labour battle. Anything less amounts to "negligence."

The two sides are to resume negotiations April 5 in Edmonton (Story on page 21).