Workers at the Gibraltar Mine site in Williams Lake will be involved in strike vote meetings over the next two weeks.
Unifor Local 3018 President Curtis Finley said the union brought a tentative proposal to the membership, which was voted down overwhelmingly, with 82 percent saying no.
“We returned back to the bargaining table with the company, at that time we had reached impasse,” Finley explained, “once reaching impasse, that allows the local to reach out to the members, get a strike vote. We’ve set up meetings for this week and next week, we’ve got to follow the provincial COVID-19 restrictions so we have to set up more than one meeting, as well as the shift up at the site itself. We can’t just do it in one meeting, so we have two meetings this week and two meetings next week, and from there we’ll return to the bargaining table with hopefully a strong strike vote, and hopefully, we can get back to bargaining.”
Finley said the company had been showing record profits lately, and the membership did not feel it was a fair enough deal. Taseko Mines will be releasing their third-quarter 2021 financial market close on November 3rd, 2021.
“The local and the bargaining committee are always ready to meet with the company to get back to bargaining in hopes that we can resolve this without any labour dispute is the key to us,” Finley said.
Vista Radio has reached out to Taseko Mines for comment but has not heard back yet.
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