Mobility and choices for miners and their families: Lessons from Elliot Lake

Abstract

Mining is a mobile industry and it is becoming more so as the industry restructures in search of greater flexibility and global expansion, making mining employment more unstable. There are specific problems in the organisation of the mining industry that make the more frequent relocations required of workers and their families particularly complex. The following paper will identify these in the light of the experiences when Denison Mines and Rio Algom closed the uranium mines in Elliot Lake in Northern Ontario and more than 4 000 workers were laid-off.