Loading ...Workers at Idaho’s Lucky Friday mine have been on strike for 370 days
Lucky Friday workers together with their families and union leaders marched on Saturday in Mullan, Idaho, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the strike they initiated on March 13, 2017, to push for better labour standards.
Lucky Friday, owned by Hecla Mining Company (NYSE: HL), is Idaho Silver Valley’s largest underground silver mine. It began operating in 1942 and is expected to have another 20-30 years of mine life. In 2016, the mine produced 3.6 million ounces of silver.
But the workers’ stoppage, which is said to the region’s longest, has idled the mine. According to The Spokesman-Review, out of the 230 union workers involved in the action, 100 attended Saturday’s rally. They chanted “Mullan is a union town! We won’t let you shut it down!” as they marched from downtown to Lucky Friday’s picket line.
In a press release, United Steelworkers said that last week they carried out a secret ballot election where union members “overwhelmingly voted to remain on strike and return to the bargaining table rather than submit the outstanding issues to binding interest arbitration.”
The group says that the main issue at hand is “management’s unfair labor practices.” The most sensitive point in the negotiation is that Hecla wants to change the seniority-based bidding system established in the 1980s and which governs work assignments.
cont. http://www.mining.com/workers-idahos-lucky-friday-mine-strike-370-days/