Mr. Bob Behrendt
Resident Manager
Wabush Mines									
P.O. Box 3000
Wabush, NL
A0R 1B0

June 20, 2007

Dear Sir,

	On behalf of the membership of USW 6285, I want to respond to your correspondence of June 19, 2007.
We were appalled and disgusted to be informed of your intention to reduce the Air Transportation allowance effective January 01, 2008.  Your decision to arbitrarily   withdraw a benefit contained in a negotiated contract is wrong and we will not accept your position.
It is our intention to inform you that we will ignore your position, as you will not be in charge of this operation pending the offer to sell the assets in the Wabush operation at the end of the summer.  Furthermore, it is our opinion that you do not have the right or authority to arbitrially withdraw any benefit in the Collective Agreement.  We do serve notice to you and others that this membership will not co-operate pending a resolution of this issue.  We will deal with future owners on this issue at a time that we choose as we feel that the time is not right seeing that you or your advisors do not have the respect of the workforce to decide our future.   
We also do not like the lack of respect you and the Human Resource people have shown toward the membership in dealing with this issue. The Manager of Labour Relations misled the Union President in arranging this so-called meeting and this has created an area of mistrust that will have implications for this company. Your actions have proven to all the residents of this town your disregard for their rights that has been negotiated for the last 31 years.  We wish you good riddance.

Respectfully yours,

Jim

Cc:   Jack Tuomi
        Joseph Carrabba
        Roger Thomassin
        Media
        Tom Harris, International Rep.