Nova Scotia mill faces familiar dilemma
Nova Scotian union executive says he understands what Corner Brook mill is going through
Archie McLachlan can relate to the pressure his union brothers and sisters at Corner Brook Pulp and Paper are feeling as they try to work out a new collective agreement.
McLachlan is first vice-president of Local 972 of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union at the NewPage paper mill in Port Hawkesbury, N.S.
That operation was idled last September when NewPage went bankrupt, but plans are now in the works for the mill to restart this fall under a new owner, Pacific West Commercial Corp.
In order for the mill to start making paper again, the unions had a tough choice. The new tentative contract they just approved, which is dependent on the operation starting back up, will see the mill’s workforce cut by more than half, from 550 to 229, since it will go from being a two-machine operation to one.
The mill will no longer make newsprint on its older machine, built about 40 years ago. Instead, it will resume making super-calendered, or high-gloss, paper on its more modern machine built in the late 1990s.
The union also agreed to relief measures when it came to funding pensions, an issue that is a major bone of contention in Corner Brook.
The unions in Corner Brook, whose collective agreement expired three years ago, recently rejected the request from Kruger Inc., the Corner Brook mill’s owner, for more time to rebuild the company’s pension plan.
Last week, Kruger told them they must reach a new labour contract by this Friday and then bring the pension funding relief measures back for a second vote. The failure to reach a new deal and another rejection of the funding relief exten- sion request, according to the company, could put the future of the entire operation in jeopardy.
“It’s negotiating with a gun to your head,” McLachlan said of the deadline imposed on reaching a deal in Corner Brook. “These are tough decisions for people to make.”
When McLachlan had to bring the tentative deal to his members, he and the union executive recommended accepting it. He was surprised at how many members — 85 per cent of them — voted in favour of it, given the tough concessions they had to agree to.
“We laid it all out and it was really up to them to decide,” said McLachlan. “It was a tough pill to swallow, with more contracting out of things like janitorial services, but the membership decided it was better to have one machine running than no mill.”
The restart of the mill in Port Hawkesbury was also contingent on the company reaching deals with the Nova Scotia government regarding energy and access to timber.
Those problems, especially power costs, are not as significant in Corner Brook, since Kruger owns its own power plant in Deer Lake and has ready access to tim- ber across the island of Newfoundland.
Still, the economic impacts of a shutdown of operations would not be different. McLachlan said many of his mill’s most skilled and experienced trades workers have left for greener pastures in Western Canada, something Corner Brook Pulp and Paper is already experiencing.
He said even some machine tenders, whose top job on the paper machine is not considered a trade, but is typically held by people with solid knowledge of process operations, have left for Alberta and Saskatchewan.
“Hopefully, we’ll have enough (knowledgeable workers) to get the mill fired back up,” McLachlan said.
Last year, NewPage hired about 150 people to replace some older workers who were retiring. Many of those people left relatively wellpaying jobs to work at the mill, but will now find themselves not among the 229 getting back on at the mill because they are low in the ranks of seniority.
Right now, most who worked at the mill and are still in the area are on employment insurance and will be until the mill starts up in the fall.
“As you guys know (in Corner Brook), the paper mill is an important part of the local economy,” McLachlan said. “A lot of local businesses here have been affected because people have stopped buying.”