Chapter VII: Buchans: Company Town in Transition  (continued)

Morale in Buchans plummeted as people faced the prospect of surviving winter on the strike pay of $20 per week. The more workers talked amongst themselves and to their wives, the more they regretted turning down the contract. ASARCO saw their mood and supplemented its offer with the promise to freeze rent and coal prices during the term of the agreement. The workers voted again on November 12 and the ballots tallied up to 64 per cent in favour. The strike was over.

Life in Buchans for the time being returned to normal. Concentrate production, which had dropped sharply during the strike months of 1971, picked up again in 1972. ASARCO's larger profits for 1972 reflected both this increased production and an improvement in world base metal prices.

All went smoothly until the union met ASARCO in February 1973 to renew the 1971 contract. The two sides battled back and forth, with the company offering 60 cents more per hour and the union pointing to the enlarged 1972 profits. Negotiations ceased when union members voted against what they called an "insulting offer"; and in March, 16 months after returning to work from the 1971 strike, they put up their picket lines again.

Whether because miners felt that Buchans' days were numbered or because of the escalated cost of living or simply because of the times, the 1973 Buchans strike possessed a desperate air. After only two weeks of striking, the union cut off the town's essential services. Failing thus to force ASARCO's hand, members attached a loudspeaker to a car top and paraded in front of the local management's homes singing out anti-ASARCO songs composed for the occasion by a worker, Angus Lane of Fortune Harbour. Wives and children lent men their vocal and moral support.

It is important to note that little discrepancy existed between the average wages demanded by the union and offered by the company. As one journalist put it, Buchans was "not so much a mining site caught in an industrial dispute as a community in the throes of a dying lifestyle."⁽²⁷⁾ Consciously or otherwise, striking workers were seeking to discard traces of their company town harness as well as to obtain higher wages. In 1973, more than ever before, their desire to strike within the law only just balanced their sensitivity toward any company actions suggestive of arrogance.

Suddenly on April 24 the balance skewed wildly. An irate ASARCO geologist literally broke through the picket line with his car, slightly injuring one man. The miners became livid. They overturned his car, stoned his greenhouse and compelled him to flee Buchans. For his own safety, ASARCO transferred the man from Newfoundland. However, the townsmen had not yet exorcized their rage. A week later they toppled a train caboose that had been used to mask a strike-breaking gasoline truck. Next, they marched over to the ASARCO buildings where they broke windows, ransacked files and generally turned offices inside out. Things had gotten out of hand.

The violence, regrettable though it was, forced the strike to the attention of provincial and federal governments, the former of which appointed Howard Dyer of Memorial University of Newfoundland to conduct a two-part inquiry into the dispute. The first Dyer Commission Report appeared within three weeks of its appointment and achieved instant popularity with the union for recommending that the miners receive a 92-cent-per-hour average wage increase over two years. Had ASARCO accepted the wage recommendations, the strike would have ended there and then. Instead, the company rejected it and forced negotiations to cease again.

The strike continued. In mid-August the Newfoundland government at last ordered ASARCO's vice-president of industrial relations to fly to St. John's for consultation. The man arrived and talks began. Buchans waited as ASARCO representatives, local and national union heads and government officials determined the town's fate. Upon emerging, the company made its third and final offer of an 87-cents-an-hour average wage increase over three years: a figure nearly identical to that proposed by the Dyer Commission four months earlier. Local 5457 approved the raise and so ended the strike.

Resolution of the 1973 strike brought a lull to Buchans. For 29 weeks the workers' energies had been directed toward coping with an unreal atmosphere of confusion and violence. Once back at their regular jobs they came to realize that the vital questions concerning Buchans' future still remained unanswered: how would Buchans be affected when the 50-year contract between ASARCO and Terra Nova Properties expired in March 1976; and what would happen to the town and its people when available ore reserves ran out in 1979?

The first uncertainty ended on 17 March 1976 with ASARCO Incorporated, Buchans Unit⁽²⁸⁾ and Price (Nfld.) Pulp and Paper Limited⁽²⁹⁾ signing a new contract whereby Price repossessed its original mineral exploration rights over the entire 1905 A.N.D. Co. concession area except for the mine site. The two companies agreed to continue sharing the profits from the existing mines and from any future mines developed on deposits discovered by ASARCO prior to March 1976.

The second uncertainty is still unresolved. Upon the recommendation of the final Dyer Commission Report, the Newfoundland government appointed a Buchans Task Force in April 1975 to study effects of the mines' closure on Buchans and to suggest alternative livelihoods for the community. The task force received acclaim both within and beyond Buchans, but few of its worthy recommendations have yet to be implemented.

The mining operation at Buchans now hands in the balance. The Price Company may locate enough ore reserves for mining to continue; if not, Buchans will have to devise an alternative economic base.

On 26 June 1979, Buchans finally came into its own as a full-fledged community: the Townsite amalgamated with the company-owned portion of town under a town council and became incorporated into the Town of Buchans. Thus, whatever Buchans' future-be it as a mining town, a tourist centre or an agricultural and logging centre-the people now possess the administrative means of determining their own destiny.