Word: contract
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Burns, 36, and Aberle, 27, are one-half of a four-man contract mining team. It will take them nearly a month to produce the 2,000 tons of ore needed to yield one 401-oz. bar that is "four nines," or 99.99% pure gold. But they will never see any of it. Even so, says fellow Miner Dan Cooper, a big Dakota farm boy lately turned miner: "People back home are always asking, 'How much did you get?' They think you just pick the stuff up and put it in your pocket...
...Contract miners like Aberle and Burns rarely see the gold they dig, which is usually invisible to the naked eye. Like other miners at Homestake, they get paid only for the volume of rock they shake loose and ship out - plus an hourly bonus based on fluctuations in the price of gold. (In the past month the bonus has nearly doubled, from 310 to 570 an hour. The daily gold rate, chalked on dimly lit blackboards deep under the earth, is watched by miners as keenly as it is by the gnomes of Zurich...
...Team partners are chosen with extreme care, because sheer ambition is essential to success, plus the kind of skill that grows from aptitude and experience. "There's quite a few guys working their butts off and not making any money," says Burns. The alternative to working on a contract team is to hire out at a flat $7.50 an hour in support jobs like motorman or cage operator. Adds Burns: "If you're going to mine gold, you might as well make money at it." Aberle agrees. But as they call it a day after...
...financial blood bank for the company might be the $300 million strike fund built up by the United Auto Workers. After the contract settlement with General Motors two weeks ago, that fund will not be needed to pay picketing workers, and Chrysler may try to borrow from it This week Chrysler will open its own contract negotiations with the U.A.W., and ways in which the union might help the automaker will be discussed. U.A.W. President Douglas Fraser rules out using the $300 million kitty, but may accept partly deferred wage or benefit payments in return for a voice in management...
Westling stressed that the pink slips will not all result in axed jobs; the university merely sends pink slips to be sure of providing one year's notice to anyone whose contract might not be renewed, he said...