The nearly year-long labour dispute between Vale and Steelworkers Local 6500 is over, but the city's court case against Vale regarding alleged infractions of municipal zoning, building and fire code bylaws continues.

The city and Vale met in court earlier this month. However, because Vale has requested a large number of documents from the city, the matter was postponed until Aug. 3.

“Then a date will be set for a pre-trial, and then a trial,” Ward 3 Coun. Claude Berthiaume, who asked city solicitor Jamie Canapini for an update on the court case at last week's city council meeting, told Northern Life.

“It's still going to take quite some time before this is dealt with.”

The city is arguing that by housing replacement workers on company property during the strike, Vale broke the city's bylaws.

Berthiaume said that even though the strike is now over, it's important to defend the city's bylaws.

“I raised the question way back (in the winter),” he said. “If we're not to pursue (this matter), what does it mean about our bylaws? They did break these laws, and they have to be dealt with.”

Vale spokesperson Steve Ball said the company did not expect the city to drop its case just because the strike is over.

However, he said the company was within its rights to house replacement workers on its property.

“We've made it clear that this is something we've always done,” he said. “We understand that we needed to address some safety issues, which we did. But certainly we believe we have a case that we've housed workers in the past, and as a result we have a valid non-conformance case.”

Berthiaume said Vale's argument that it set a precedent in the past which allows it to house workers on site during labour disputes is not valid.

First of all, during previous strikes, it was Inco Ltd. housing workers on site, not Vale (which bought Inco in 2006), he said. As well, during previous strikes, the company hadn't restarted production, Berthiaume said.