VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – The United Steelworkers (USW) union has ratified a new three-year labour contract at US iron-ore producer Cliffs Natural Resources’ Tilden and Empire mines, in Michigan, and its United Taconite and Hibbing Taconite mines, in Minnesota.
The four local unions represent about 2 000 workers under Cliffs employment, and the new labour agreement is retroactive to October 1, 2015, and will expire on October 1, 2018.
The agreement took more than a year of negotiations to finalise, resulting in what the USW believes to be a fair agreement that preserves wages, benefits and other long-standing rights and protections without lowering the standards of living of current workers or retirees.
The union added that it believes the US steel industry has for too long been plagued by unfairly traded imports, especially from overcapacity in China.