Bombardier workers reject contract

Bombardier Transportation has lost a bid to break the impasse with Unifor local 1075 that has seen the Thunder Bay plant idled by a strike for six weeks.

In a vote supervised by the Ministry of Labour on Tuesday, 81% of workers who voted turned down the company's last contract offer.

Union local president Dominic Pasqualino said 751 of the approximately 900 workers on strike participated in the vote.

"I think they were trying to drive fear into our workers. Butour workers stood up to that and I think they tried to intimidate them by saying that they would not get a better offer," he said.

Pasqualino said by law, the company cannot request any more supervised votes. He said Bombardier tried to do something similar at a plant in Quebec.

"I knew they were doing tactics like this in La Pocatiere. Andwe verified this morning that they'd done this in La Pocatiere and their vote was 80 percent as well to vote no," he said.

Pasqualinosaid after that vote, the company made another offerand the two sides settled.

Companydisappointed

In a statement, Bombardier vice-president Aaron Rivers said the company is "obviously disappointed."He said he will now shift his focus from fighting to get the Thunder Bay work force back to work"to ensuring that Bombardier's customer contracts and commitments are met."

The statement said the company would use its multiple resources to do thatand that it is going to make "tough necessary decisions."

Sarah Buchan, a welder at the plant, said the vote shows how members are backing the union.

"We have so much money and so much great workers that know what they're doing at this plant," she said.

"It would be unintelligent of them to move it, or do anything drastic."