Voisey's Bay union in legal strike position

More than 200 workers at the Voisey's Bay nickel mine in northern Labrador are preparing for a possible strike on Saturday.

Members of the United Steelworkers union are in a legal position to strike as of midnight Saturday. Unionized workers have voted 90 per cent in favor of job action.

Negotiations between the union and Vale Inco, the company that operates the Voisey’s Bay mine, broke off in June. Workers have been without a collective agreement since March.

The United Steelworkers union has said Vale Inco wants to roll back an employee bonus based on the price of nickel. The company also wants to impose a three-year wage freeze.

The union has accused the company of using the global economic slowdown to try to roll back bonuses and freeze wages.

"We do realize that we were in a very bad economic situation," Darren Cove, spokesman for the union local, told CBC News on Friday.

"Right now we’re in recovery mode, and we don't think that we should base a three-year collective agreement on the recession that we’re recovering from right now," he said.

"The only way right now to avert a strike would be for the company Vale Inco to inform us that the concessions that they're asking are off the table and that they are willing to bargain in good faith towards a fair collective agreement for the membership," Cove said.

The nickel bonus was at the centre of a strike that shut down production at Voisey's Bay for eight weeks in the summer of 2006.

Unionized workers at Vale Inco’s nickel mine operation in Sudbury, Ont., have been on strike since July 13.

No one with Vale Inco was available for comment.