REGIONAL— Facing uncertainty over the future of their mine and processing facility, workers at Northshore Mining have voted to join the United Steelworkers (USW). It was the sixth time that the union had sought a vote of workers at the facility, currently owned and operated by Cleveland Cliffs.
The mining operation includes the Peter Mitchell ore pit near Babbitt and the processing facility at Silver Bay and its future has been in doubt in recent years. Cliffs’ CEO Lourenco Goncalves has begun referring to the facility as a “swing plant” that will operate only when Cliffs has a need for the additional product. The plant’s 400 workers returned to the job earlier this year after a nearly year-long layoff. Workers at the facility have told the Timberjay that morale at the facility has suffered as a result of the uncertainty over their future employment.
The latest union vote suggests workers there are ready for a new approach.
The workers elected to join the Steelworkers through card check, a process that can lead to unionization once a majority of workers approve the move. The union had 90 days to get the support of a majority of workers at the facility, but had exceeded a majority in less than a month. The signatures were verified by an independent arbitrator this week, making the union vote official.
“It’s very exciting for us,” said USW district staff representative John Arbogast. “It’s been 34 years of trying.”
Arbogast said the union vote wasn’t fought by Cliffs, which made the union’s work easier. Arbogast said Goncalves respects the partnership the company has with the USW, which represents approximately 2,000 Cliffs employees at four other locations on the Iron Range and in northern Michigan. “We’re very fortunate we didn’t have to get in the kind of fights that sometimes happen,” he added.
Arbogast said the union will soon send out bargaining surveys to Northshore workers to better understand the issues that they want addressed through collective bargaining. Workers will then elect a bargaining committee to begin negotiations with the company. When asked, he acknowledged that Northshore workers may be feeling uneasy about the operation’s status as a swing plant. “That’s scary stuff when the CEO announces you might be going up and down based on the market,” said Arbogast. He noted that the union has helped to keep mineworkers on the job on the Range through a variety of methods, opportunities which he hopes will become available to Northshore workers in the near future.
“I think the big thing is that they will finally have someone to negotiate for them on the issues. I’m happy for the workers up there.”
Northshore was the final mine on the Iron Range to operate without a union contract.