Hundreds of employees will be going back to work at the Highland Valley Copper mine, near Logan Lake. The laid-off workers voted 86% in favor of a new contract.

When Canada's largest open-pit copper mine closed in May, more than 900 workers were left wondering when, or if, it would ever re-open. Now that an overwhelming majority of workers have voted in favor of a mediated contract, the mine will resume limited operations almost immediately.

The contract doesn't give mine-workers everything they had wanted. In fact, workers could see their wages decline by up to 15% if world copper prices plummet. However, local union president Carol Landry says most members are satisfied. She says, "It's good in the fact that the members get to go back to work, the mine will re-open. It's good also under the terms of the economic plan there is some security now for the workers, even if copper does go into a slump again."

A mechanic at the mine, Leonard Cassidy, says the workers' new-found security is a relief to everyone else in the community. He says, "It really trickles down, you don't realize how much it affects other people, you think it just affects people at the mine. But there are other people like the suppliers and the people who own grocery stores and the people who shop there, and they all got affected by it somehow."

Company officials hope to have the mine back in full production by the last week of October. The company has also agreed to keep the mine in Logan Lake for the remaining four years of the contract, as long as copper prices stays above 60 cents per pound.