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by Mark Sproxton
Northern News Services
NNSL (OCT 09/96) - "As soon as I heard about a union campaign, I knew where I would be. There was no question.
"My only question was whether I come out right away in the open."
For 13 years, Peter Perry never thought much about union activity.
Now he and his fellow workers are deciding on whether or not they want to be represented by the United Steelworkers of America.
The second round of voting was scheduled for the first three days of this week.
Echo Bay's Lupin mine is a non-union gold operation and Perry, a former Newfoundlander, makes a good living at a good camp.
Living quarters are comfortable, there are racquet ball courts, a games room, a weight room, TVs and boats for use between shifts.
But like employees at any workplace, they can have beefs with the way certain things or people are handled.
Perry saw things at the mine he didn't like. So did Norm Smith, another long-time employee of Echo Bay. Neither believed their concerns were being properly dealt with by their superiors.
"The biggest thing is people were not getting treated the same," Smith said. "People were getting reprimands for no reason. They were not consistent."
So when there was talk of a union drive, Smith knew he wanted to be front and centre. He volunteered to help with the United Steelworkers of America effort.
By doing so, Smith, a production mucker, identified himself with a cause not everyone believes in.
Unions and mine management have a long history of turmoil. The situation at Royal Oak's Giant mine in the early 1990s serves as an example of how crazy things can get.
Needless to say, the year-and-a-half between the start of the union drive to when the voting began caused a lot of turmoil for Perry, and particularly Smith.
Both cases were used as examples at a Canada Labor Relations Board (CLRB) hearing where the union claimed Echo Bay violated provisions of the Canada Labor Code.
It was the final decision from the hearing that led the CLRB to grant the Steelworker wish for a unionization vote to be held at the mine.
"It caused a great deal of stress," Smith said of being a union organizer. "I was taken off my job, intimidated and harassed.
"I got a lot of respect from employees for standing up for what I believe in. The problems I had were with management."
According to the CLRB report from the Steelworker-Echo Bay hearing, "the employer circulated a circular to its employees which derisively referred to Smith."
The bulletin contained, among other statements, phrases such as: "Norm gives Echo Bay employees wrong information."
Smith was also dismissed from the mine for allegedly endangering the safety of himself and others underground by driving machinery that was smoking from an oil leak.
The CLRB's report said in other similar incidents, and even in some where a fire actually occurred, the severity of punishment levelled against Smith was due to his relationship with the union.
Before being dismissed, Smith said the strain of what went on forced him to go on stress leave.
So when the CLRB ordered he be returned to his job and paid all wages and bonuses he would have earned if he had been on the job, Smith felt a great burden lifted from his shoulders.
But he still believes he has not been totally absolved from the circumstances surrounding his firing. Whenever there was a safety concern raised in his area, Smith said he always looked into the situation.
"The damage has been done," he said. "Some people will believe the company."
For Perry, the connections with union were not as strong, but he too had to deal with stress.
A fellow employee constantly asked Perry why he would support a union. The questioning went on week after week.
And during Perry's annual holidays, the company made him return to camp a day early to avoid flight complications from Yellowknife to the mine.
The CLRB ruled the company could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt this act was not at least in part motivated by anti-union animus. It also ruled Perry be compensated for his lost day of vacation.
"When I found out I won, it was the little bit of justice I was waiting for," Perry said. "I felt justified in what I'd done."
And since the CLRB ruling, Perry and Smith said they noticed changes around the workplace.
Fewer workers were rejecting union material offered in public, they said. Before the decision, however, Perry and Smith said few would openly take any union documentation in public.
"The bottom line is we're going to have to live with the results of the vote," Smith said. "I've done my best organizing, now it's up to the people."
Company officials could not be reached by Yellowknifer deadlines.