Tenaris boss 'shocked' by contract-burning

Jorge Mitre, the Canadian area manager of Tenaris Algoma Tubes, took it personally when employees of the local tube mill burned their labour agreements this past week.

"I feel shocked," Mitre told SooToday.com. "I just don't know how it happened."

Mitre (shown) says that the bargaining team worked hard to negotiate a good offer that was competitive in wages, benefits and pensions and offered significant increases over their last agreement.

"The union agreed with that and were happy with it," he says. "They said they would recommend it to their members and then we ended up in a strike."

Mitre says the company had planned to invest US$50 million in the Sault mill and create another 100 positions, but this labour action is having an impact on the future of the mill.

"They don't understand that there are consequences to everything," he tells SooToday.com.

Mitre says that customers are wondering if they can trust Tenaris Algoma Tubes to meet their needs.

But he adds that the current strike isn't dampening Tenaris' appetite for the resource- and labour-rich North American market.

"I wouldn't generalize how it would affect the Tenaris approach to the North American market," he said. "But yes I would say that it has impacted the Algoma situation."

"It's very hard for me to turn and explain what happened here because we sat at the table not to negotiate reductions in salaries and benefits but to negotiate increases," he said. "We were not that far apart and we reached a deal that made all the members [of the bargaining team] happy."

Mitre said he was especially surprised that members rejected the offer in light of the bonus Tenaris added to their wages.

"Over the past two years we added to the percentage negotiated with the union the Tenaris bonus that raised the wages 10 percent in 2004 and 11 percent in 2005," Mitre said.

He said that the company introduced a bonus system when it started to make money to allow employees to share in its profits.

During the four years that the company did not make money there were no layoffs, he pointed out.

"I would move people around, eliminate subcontractors," he said. "But I would never lay people off."

"I hope that the rational will prevail over the emotional and there will be an understanding soon," he said. "There really are no contradictions here."

"This is the time when we need to consolidate our position and prepare for the future," said Mitre. "Bad times will come again and we need to be ready."

But he said Tenaris may not be ready to sit down and talk with the union right away.

"What I would like to see happen first is for them to find out what happened. To start the negotiations again and not repeat what was done I think there should be some homework done between the members and their representatives to understand that the next time we are sitting at the table we are really negotiating."

Mitre said he didn't believe the members knew what they were being offered and that the company was prepared to extend the deadline so the members could take more time to look at it but the union declined.

He said that he has no doubt that both parties will agree that it is a good offer if they just take about a week to sit and digest the thing and if people are more rational and less emotional about it.

"Up until [last week] we were proud to show we were something of a miracle by starting from zero and growing everyday and producing," said Mitre.

The strike came as an unhappy surprise that threatens to damage the company's reputation as a consistent supplier of quality products, he said.

Mitre has spent about half his life working his way up ladder with Tenaris International.

He came to town to pick up the keys to the Sault's ailing tube mill on September 17, 2000.

And Mitre was the lead man when Tenaris Algoma Tubes rolled its first pipe on November 2, 2000 with a team of 160 employees.