After nearly a year on strike, miners and other production workers at Vale’s operations in Sudbury and Port Colborne ratified a deal and are heading back to work. The deal includes significant concessions, including giving up the defined benefit pension plan for new hires, who will have a defined contribution plan instead — yet another example of a unionized company successfully weakening workers’ pensions. Evaluation of the strike and its significance will be important. In the meantime, this column about the end of the strike in the Sudbury Star is worth a read.