Vermont mining companies stay grounded

Vermont Business Magazine, Jan 1994 by Barna, Ed

Andrushko painted a picture, later confirmed by other slate operators, of a work force divided into two groups: a company's steady, reliable workers; and a pool of more temporary and transient workers who leave jobs for lower-paying jobs elsewhere for no apparent reason, take time off to go hunting and fishing, and generally don't care about career advancement.

Joseph Taran observed that the manual labor in the slate quarries is messy, wet and dirty, and many workers would rather take unemployment or welfare part of the time as a break. "They know how to work the system so they don't have to work that much," he said.

The slate situation stands in sharp contrast to that in the granite industry, where a three-year contract recently met the approval of more than 75 percent of the unionized workers. Barre Granite Association executive vice-president Shattuck said that by the end of 1996, granite workers will be making an average of $20.60 an hour, plus the best Blue Cross-Blue Shield health plan and retirement benefits.

But if the slate business has been steady, if not spectacular, and the turnover hasn't been that big of a problem. Taran said, "The majority of the quarries now have a pretty good set of employees," with 90 percent staying five years or longer.

As for business, Taran said that between roofing slate, flagstone, floor tiles, and structural stone, something is always selling. The company tried using a sales representative once, but that didn't add much to the business. Calls have come from around the country, from Canada, and even from the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia, he said.

Michael Rupe, co-owner of the six-employee Rupe Slate Company in South Poultney, said, "It's an industry that never stopped during this recession. You just don't make enough of it."

Rupe observed that around the county, you can see barns whose foundations and beams are rotted, but whose roofs are still good -- and will be re-used. The big turning point for the Slate Belt was the oil embargo, which pushed up the price of asphalt shingles to the point where, in 30 years' time (the guarantee period for asphalt), slate would pay for itself.

The fireproof qualities of slate roofing has not been lost on California homebuilders, and "a lot of slate is going out that way," Rupe said.

At Vermont Structural Slate, general manager Robert Zahnzinger said the 62-employee company has been growing, but not in the number of employees due to technological changes. About 90 percent of sales are domestic, with 10 percent going overseas, he said.

As for Act 250, Zahnzinger said, "We're fortunate we didn't have any residences near when we opened." But on the 700-acre property, where operations go back to the 1800's, "We haven't opened up any new quarries, either," he said.

TALC

The trend toward consolidation has reached its extreme in the talc industry, where Cyprus Industrial Minerals bought up all the mines and then sold them to Luzenac America, which in turn is owned by RTZ (Rio Tinto Zinc), an English firm that also owns US Borax and US Silica Sand. The pattern of acquisition may be related to a market shift among mineral companies toward industrial rather than precious metals, which have seen wide swings in value.