The first collective agreement between nickel miners and smelting workers of the United Steelworkers (USW) in Ontario, Canada, and Companhia Vale do Rio Dice (Vale) of Brazil expired over the weekend, but the two sides have extended the current three-year agreement until 12 July in order to give more time to resolve issues.

The USW represents some 4,500 workers at Sudbury, Ontario, site of one of the world’s largest nickel processing operations, and another 180 at Vale’s Port Colborne, Ontario, facility. Both USW branches are bargaining jointly on a common labour agreement. It is the first time that the USW and Vale have negotiated in Ontario’s copper and nickel belt since the world’s biggest iron ore miner bought Inco late in 2006.

At that time, USW held talks with Brazilian managers and laid forward a set of social principles that the union expects the company to follow in Canada. USW also crafted a Solidarity Statement called the “Sudbury Accord” in 2006 between Canadian, Brazilian, and other trade unions, calling for global bargaining power at all Vale worksites.

Speaking on the extension, a company spokesman told the Sudbury Star newspaper that it shows a “continued willingness for the two parties to keep working together to achieve an outcome, a successful outcome.” The USW is holding membership meetings today and tomorrow, 1-2 June, to inform members on the outstanding issues, and to get direct feedback.

Sudbury area and Port Colborne USW members did vote overwhelmingly for a strike mandate on 21 May. The USW had another collective agreement which was earlier extended with Vale at Voisey Bay, Newfoundland. That contract expired 1 May 2009.

These are the not the first set of collective negotiations in Canada between the USW and Vale. Last September, 1,300 miners in Thompson, Manitoba, ratified a three-year contract with the Brazilian mining company.