Vale Inco slices 54 jobs
Posted By CAROL MULLIGAN, THE SUDBURY STAR
Posted 1 hour ago
Vale Inco announced Thursday it is laying off 140 management staff worldwide -- about half of them in Canada, 54 in Sudbury -- as part of the restructuring the company has undergone during the last eight to 10 months.
Vale Inco spokesman Cory McPhee said Sudbury employees, who work in business support functions, were told Thursday that it was their last day of work.
McPhee called the 54 job losses in Sudbury "a pure reduction, not a movement of positions anywhere."
Vale Inco recognizes "any time you're talking about reductions in staff, it's the hardest thing you have to do. It's a hard decision to have to make. It's a harder decision to hear," said McPhee.
With these reductions, McPhee said "we do believe, we firmly believe, at the end of the restructuring, we will have an operation that is primed for success, long-term success."
McPhee said many of the staff laid off Thursday weren't on the job because of the eight-week production shutdown at Ontario operations. But he said the company would have made every effort to contact them "and find out where they are so they can do it in the best manner possible."
The company is offering assistance, in the form of career counselling and job searching, to laid-off employees.
McPhee said this round of layoffs is the "end of this phase of restructuring." No more layoffs are planned, but McPhee said he couldn't "definitively" rule them out in the future.
The job reductions were announced in a worldwide update to employees from Tito Martins, president and chief executive officer of Vale Inco.
The newsletter also told employees how Vale Inco is restructuring its Canada- United Kingdom operations.
The company will be run by three vice-presidents, all of whom will be based in Sudbury, rather than by operation heads in Manitoba, Newfoundland and Sudbury.
"Sudbury is our largest operating community and it will be the hub of Canadian-UK operations," said McPhee, adding he sees this part of the restructuring as good news for Sudbury.
Effective July 13, three men familiar to Sudburians will assume new roles.
Mike MacFarlane will become vice-president of mining and milling across Canada and the UK. MacFarlane is based in Sudbury as vice-president of mines for Ontario operations.
Steve Wood, a Sudbury native who recently worked with PT Inco in Indonesia, will become the vice-president of smelting and refining.
John Pollesel, who was named interim head of Ontario operations after Fred Stanford left Vale Inco, will become vice-president of production services and support for Canada and the UK.
Pollesel will be in charge of "everything that supports the production process" such as divisional shops, engineering, energy management and the power department, said McPhee.
He will continue with general management responsibilities for Ontario operations.
By appointing the three vice-presidents, the company is "looking at the entire picture and leveraging the availability of assets, the knowledge and expertise that resides across the operations, the movement of materials -- just looking at how we can best maximize all the assets at our disposal without worrying about geographic location," said McPhee.
He said "silos" have been created over the years because one program or policy might have been in place in one operation and not in another.
The layoffs were announced as United Steelworkers Local 6500 members were preparing to vote on Vale Inco's settlement proposal, which the union's negotiating team has recommended members reject.
If they vote against the contract offer, they will likely take to the picket line Monday at 12:01 a. m., after their extended contract expires Sunday at midnight.
