Former Sudbury Vale worker looks back at lengthy strike 10 years later

It's been 10 years since a bitter strike ended in Sudbury, a labour disruption that a former worker and union executive says employees didn't gain anything from.

About 3,000 Vale workers hit the picket line on July 13, 2009 before signing a new contract almost a year later. 

Jason Patterson was on the United Steelworkers local bargaining unit at the time. He was also the treasurer of USW Local 6500. 

He and two other workers were fired during the strike following an incident that ended in an assault.

Patterson was riding in a truck with fellow Steelworkers Micheal French and Patrick Veinot, when French pulled over and assaulted a Vale employee jogging along the road. That Vale employee had been known to cross the picket line.

"It feels like yesterday in some aspects but in others, it definitely feels like a decade has passed," he said. "It's part of my past and that's where it stays."

French was eventually found guilty of assault. Patterson says he and Venoit were never charged with assault but with criminal harassment, which he says they were acquitted of.

He says if he had known what was going to happen, he wouldn't have gotten in the vehicle.

"I had no clue what was happening leading up to that," he said. "When the altercation occurred, I did not involve myself and I don't think I could have done anything differently."

After he was fired, an arbitration case was held to determine if the dismissal was just. The arbitrator ruled the dismissal was justified.

'So disappointing'

But because Patterson was still on the union's bargaining committee, he played a role in helping to negotiate a deal for the workers even though he didn't work for the company.

He says looking back at the deal that was reached, he doesn't feel it was "significant."

"We went back for exactly what we went out for," he said.

"That is the thing that was so disappointing. We always felt we were doing the right thing. We always felt we had to go on strike to protect the pensions for new hires. We had to protect the nickel bonus and remove the cap."

He says he encouraged members to turn down the deal at the time.

"After a year, we just ended folding up shop and walking away," he said. "I felt that we should hold out and least try to save something, but it wasn't to be."

There have been no strikes at Vale since then. Patterson says he feels the length of that strike has kept workers on the job.

"100 per cent that is preventing the union from going out," he said. "I think how we saw the community kind of rooting against us, rooting against the members … I think that makes it a lot more difficult to hold strong on anything."

As for Patterson himself, after the strike ended he says he tried to find another job in Sudbury but no one would call him back. He eventually left the city and now helps injured workers file WSIB claims.

"The best thing that could have ever happened to me was to get out of the City of Sudbury," he said.

"The backlash and the attacks and the anger in the city and the judgment … to be vilified by a community you spent your life in is disappointing."