The president and CEO of Vale Inco knows the battle between United Steelworkers Local 6500 and the company goes deeper than just the almighty dollar and even pension and bonus issues. It's about a shift of power and control of a century-old Canadian company that has not had the leverage to fight back against a union that has been a formiddable opponenet through the years, and still is.
"Change is hard to take," he said in a face-to-face interview with Northern Ontario Business at his Toronto office March 25.
Tito Martins, with or without its Vale Inco union members will be forging ahead on a plan to ramp up Sudbury production in the next while (although he was vague on when exactly that will take place). There are 1,200 employees who have been provided with a bonus cheque for 20 per cent of their annual wage, to ensure operations still humm along while strikers walk the lines. If more workers are needed, more will be sent in, he said.
He doesn't know what it will take to get the two sides talking again but his concern now seems to be more on moving ore from underground to the smelter and then to market. After all, they have customers and orders they need to fill.
Stay tuned for the more indepth interview with Tito Martins as he answers issues on corporate responsibility, financial challenges, the future of Sudbury mine operations and more.
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