The tenure of Mark Scott as Vale Manitoba Operations vice-president, and as an employee of Vale, will end July 20 as the company has reorganized the management structure for its North Atlantic operations and Asia refineries division and eliminated his position.
North Atlantic and Asia refineries director Ricus Grimbeek announced the new management structure in a July 9 bulletin, noting that Vale cannot continue to work the same way as in the past during a period of fundamental change.
“In the last month alone, we saw the closure of our Acton Refinery in the U.K. and approved the underground expansion at Voisey’s Bay in Labrador,” Grimbeek wrote. “In Manitoba, we will see the closure of our smelter and refinery in the coming weeks−certainly a difficult time for our employees and the local community. On a more positive note, we have safely and successfully completed the Thompson Concentrate Loadout Project (TCLO) on time and on budget, which will ensure Thompson can continue to deliver a valuable nickel concentrate product and remain an important mining and milling operation for many years to come.”
Under the new structure, Alistair Ross, previously the director of Ontario mining operations, will be in charge of mining operations for the North Atlantic division, including mines in Sudbury and mining and milling operations in both Thompson and Voisey’s Bay. He reports directly to Grimbeek.
Scott was one of two departures from Vale mentioned by Grimbeek, who said, “Mark has led the operations through a very difficult period with the closure of Birchtree and pending closure of the smelter and refinery. Despite these difficulties, at the same time Mark has led to Thompson team to significantly improve safety, reduce unit costs and achieve positive production results. I want to thank Mark for his ongoing commitment and wish him well in future endeavours.”
Scott, who began his career with Inco in the human resources department in Ontario in 2001, replaced Lovro Paulic as vice-president of Manitoba Operations in February 2016 after Paulic left Thompson to become the director of operations at PT Vale Indonesia. Prior to becoming vice-president, Scott was the manager of mining and milling for Vale Manitoba Operations.
Grimbeek said there was still work to be done on the management structure of individual organizations and that more information would be coming in the weeks and months ahead.
“The structure for the Manitoba Operations is still being finalized and we will share more information in the coming weeks,” said Ryan Land, Vale Manitoba Operations corporate affairs and organizational development manager, in an email.
Warren Luky, president of United Steelworkers Local 6166, which represents about 800 hourly workers in Vale Manitoba Operations, said there’s still a lot of uncertainty about exactly what the management structure of the division will look like.
“What I understand is we’ll be run as a satellite mine out of Sudbury such as Voisey’s Bay will so it‘s still not clear how that’s all going to work,” he said, noting that the union had fostered a good relationship with local management over the years. “We’ve got a lot of work done together and it’s taken a lot of work on that relationship and now the change is that we’ll be under Sudbury in some format. We don’t know all the details yet.”
Luky said Manitoba Operations currently have just over 1,100 employees, including nearly 300 staff, though he expects that number to change very soon and says that the company wants to reduce the number of hourly workers to about 600 and that some staff could be receiving layoff notices or buyout offers next month.
According to Land, Vale Manitoba Operations won’t have a full breakdown of their staff and hourly workforce until they issue notice letters sometime in the future.
“As of today, there has been no change to the timing for the remaining two notice periods and workforce adjustment phases, and the budgeted number of employees remains the same,” Rand wrote in an email to the Thompson Citizen on July 16. “Due to attrition and ongoing changes in the business, it remains a relatively dynamic process.”
Luky went on to say that the union is also uncertain about what will happen to the Birchtree Mine, which went on care and maintenance last October.
“I’ve understood unofficially from Mark Scott his desire was that they do some drilling to define what they have there and see if they can make it a mine or if there’s anything they can go after that’s viable as an ore body,” Luky said. “They’re paying $3 million a year just to keep it on care and maintenance right now but we really don’t know what’s going to happen to Birchtree. I suspect with the current nickel price, which isn’t fantastic right now, it would be difficult to make a business case to go back at it.”
The uncertainty is leading some employees, who don’t know if they will be laid off or if there will be any opportunity for them to return if they are, to resign and either move out of Thompson or on to a new career.
“A lot of them still want to work here, still want to be miners here or work in the mill and that’s the troubling part,” Luky said. “What do you tell these guys without a hard number from HR on how many people are going to get laid off? It’s an uncertain future and all we can hope for is that the nickel market will float us out of this.”
