Astaldi's Muskrat Falls workers have been paid and laid off. Now their union wants to finish the job

Astaldi workers who were recently laid off from the Muskrat Falls project have begun getting their final paycheques.

"All of the workers. over the past two days would have received their wages through direct deposit," said Darin King, executive director of Trades NL, which represents 16 building and construction trade unions, including Astaldi workers at Muskrat Falls. "If they haven't they will over the next day or so."

Workers were not paid by Astaldi for wages owed to them since Oct. 14. The company — the main contractor at Muskrat Falls — was told to stop work at the site two weeks ago, and its 500 workers were sent home. The final payments to the workers are now being paid by Nalcor.

"Nalcor had to find a way to come up with the funds to make payment," King said.

"We're very thankful the premier granted us a meeting. Within a couple of hours and through his leadership we managed to get that done."

That's a risk inherent in this that we may lose and you may lose some good qualified workers to some other projects.- Darin King

King said workers have been laid off and their records of employment have been processed and are on their way to Service Canada centres, which will allow workers to apply for employment insurance. He said the focus now is getting them back on site to finish the job.

"Whoever's going to be back in there, we want them back in there so we can get our men and women back on and continue with the great work that they've been doing on that job," King said.

King said Astaldi money is still owed to health and pension benefits, and work is being done to recover those funds.

"We're obviously trying to track down our money that we're owed for July and August … and also our outstanding money that we have for October."

Workers scatter

Without a definite timeline of when workers may return to finish Astaldi's work, workers could find jobs elsewhere.

"The Husky project in Argentia, we're looking at about 1,500 people right now and we're still hiring," King said.

"We're definitely seeing a lot of people from Muskrat Falls, the Astaldi crew in particular. We're seeing a lot of those people's names come forward to the Husky project."

He said people need and want to work and support their families, and if that means moving from one project to another, they'll make that choice.

"We pointed that out to Nalcor that that's a risk inherent in this, that we may lose and you may lose some good qualified workers to some other projects," King said. 

"They understand that."

King said with Trades NL's workforce of 20,000 members, they will find the bodies necessary to get the work done.

"I still think that there will be a core group around that will want to go back to Muskrat Falls," King said.

"We'll have no difficulty putting a really great team back there when the time comes."

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