Workers protest work schedules at Lennoxville paper plant
Employees of the Lennoxville Kruger paper mill began their Tuesday morning demonstrating outside the College St. plant to express their frustration over their current working hours. They were complaining about inaction from the company faced with union demands.
The current schedule provides for only one weekend off out of every six, which they say, prevents any work-family-life balance.
"A little over a year ago, when negotiating the collective agreement, the priority demand of workers was to review work schedules," explains union president Daniel Champagne. The employer not only refused the request, he says, but refused to discuss it at all. Since then, six employees have quit, citing work schedules as a prime reason, he adds. The mill employs only 40 workers.
As a result, Kruger management approached the union and asked for talks about schedules, but despite union cooperation, the resulting suggestions were generally felt to be no improvement.
According to the union, management is proposing a schedule that requires employees to work an average of nearly five hours more per week leading to the elimination of three jobs. The union added that the company’s proposal would have cancelled out several monetary benefits acquired over years of bargaining.
Meeting in assembly, the union members rejected 100 per cent of the non-negotiable schedule imposed by the company and unanimously voted to start pressure tactics for what they describe as a ”lack of respect” shown by company.
Lisa Comeau’s Grade 3 class from Sherbrooke Elementary School (SES) stopped by The Record yesterday to learn about the newspaper business.
The students first met with Publisher Sharon Mccully who talked about how newspapers got started. She explained that journalism evolved over the years from a sign posted in the centre of town warning locals about a fox on the loose to the current 24-hour news cycle covering everything from politics to the daily weather.
The class then divided into three groups to work on different aspects of newspaper publishing.
Reporter Gordon Lambie gave the students a tour of the printing press and walked them through the first edition of The Record, printed Feb.9, 1897.
Samantha Young, who does all the pagination for the paper, helped the students assemble a full page of news, choosing which pictures to use and where to place things on the page for easy reading.
Reporter Matthew Mccully talked about current news like outdoor rinks closing due to warm weather and Olympic athletes returning to Sherbrooke after the games. He also asked the students to help write cutlines for photos from The Record archives.
Comeau’s class also participated in a competition to design an advertisement for maple syrup. The students were asked to come up with designs and slogans to attract customers to their maple products.
The winner, Jérémie, drew a sugar shack with a camp fire and popsicle sticks laid out for sugar on snow surrounded by trees tapped with buckets and the slogan ‘Maple syrup-good for the whole family’.
The rest of the ads designed by the students are available on The Record website www.sherbrookerecord.com.