Yellowknife (Aug 18/06) - An impromptu strike at Ekati mine ended Wednesday morning, hours after 32 members of the Machinists and Aerospace Engineers local 99 walked off the job.

The workers, welders and mechanics employed by contractor Finning Canada, are responsible for maintaining the diamond mine's fleet of trucks and other heavy equipment. The strike began Tuesday night at the mine site, located 300 km northeast of Yellowknife.

"This is not something that the union knew about, we don't condone it but from what I hear they have a leg to stand on," said Frank Saptel, communications officer for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Engineer Workers Canadian office, Wednesday afternoon.

According to Gary Fraser, regional representative for the Public Service Alliance of Canada - who was informed of the job action by a member of another Ekati union - the Finning employees were unhappy with some outsourcing of mechanical and welding work.

"We can't involve ourselves in this dispute and I don't think it's going to directly affect our members," said Fraser. "But we all share a similar concern in that it's a job security issue and we just came off a strike at BHP (which owns and operates Ekati mine) over that issue and that's where we share a commonality."

According to Deana Twissell, BHP Billiton external affairs officer, the issue has been settled. Finning employees were back on the job Wednesday at 10 a.m. and the strike was against Finning and not Ekati.

"The issue is a matter between Finning and its employees (so) Ekati will not interfere but we will continue to do what is necessary to protect our business interests," said Twissell.

"We won't go into (resolution) details but we're happy to report the situation has been resolved, Finning employees have all returned to work and it's business as usual."

Manager of corporate communications for Finning Canada, Joanne Miller, confirmed to Yellowknifer that all its staff working at Ekati were back on the job.

"The resolution was one employees themselves came to, management was not involved and from what I understand the situation is normalized and everyone's back," she said.