Bowater job cuts difficult in busy mill

He said 43 unionized employees have opted for early retirement packages. Union members from the plant’s two locals, 141 and 259 are funding most of the packages through salary cuts. The parent company, AbitibiBowater Inc. is funding a smaller portion of the final cost. The position losses were announced last year after Abitibi Consolidated Inc. merged with Bowater Inc.

Wentzell explained, “The effect is like a snowball. If I lose my job, I bump so and so, which means he loses his job and so on until we get down to the person with the least seniority.”

Eventually, he said he expects some full-time employees will become “department” spares, which, in turn, will bump some current spares at this level into the general pool of spares.

Wentzell considers this a job loss scenario. In the meantime, employees are moving to different departments where they will require training.

“Right now, we’re looking at six employees looking for new places to bump into what we call a one-for-one hourly unit and three looking to bump into one-for-one salary units.”

Local 259 has four people involved in the same situation, he said. The 49 positions involve more than 49 employees.

Hourly refers to employees paid by the hour, which involves most manufacturing jobs, while salary, of course, refers to employees paid by salary. Most of these are office-type jobs.

Wentzell said he expects management job losses soon, although he stressed he wouldn’t wish this on anyone. He said he hopes early retirement packages will be utilized as well.

In addition, he said, “We’re still working on how we’re going to run the mill with 49 less positions and the devil is in the details there. We’re doing the best we can as far as the union is concerned but, boy, it’s looking a little bit like chaos because the union was of the opinion all along we didn’t have enough manpower. When we accepted the concessions from the renewal plan, we knew the work hadn’t gone away.”

He said the plant has received new orders and the corporation’s executives don’t seem to recognize the facts.

“We’re still making paper each day. We’re a pretty efficient little mill as far as I’m concerned.”

In addition, he said the company has almost always had difficulty giving people their vacations and “there seems to be a lot of overtime.”

He said he hasn’t confirmed, but has been advised the company has purchased or is purchasing more land for fibre in Nova Scotia and that the company is also attempting to buy Brooklyn Power Corporation, which utilizes waste wood to supply power to the provincial grid and steam to Bowater, to help cope with Nova Scotia’s high power rates.

Wentzell said the plant can provide about 31 megawatts of power and it “usually is running around 93,” which represents about one-third of the plant’s power needs.

Currently, Nova Scotia Power Inc. and Brooklyn Power are at the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia over the two company’s power supply contract. The dispute has gone to arbitration.

Wentzell said, “I believe buying the power plant is really good for us and good for the mill because it will save a lot on power.”

He said union members are willing - at anytime - to join the company and fight for the purchase.

Wentzell said although he dislikes the current process, he is more positive about the mill’s future.

“I think the prospects are a lot better than we were led to believe but they want scare tactics to hang over our head. I don’t know if this will ever end. I do have some regrets; I wish we had had more information when the loaded gun was in front of us.”

He said representatives from all union locals in Eastern Canada will be meeting in Montreal this month to discuss with company officials opening up their collective agreements early.

He said he doesn’t expect they will agree.

“The Atlantic Region seems to be very reluctant to do it. We lost a lot of mills in New Brunswick and its basically been concessions, concessions, concessions. I think we’re at the point where we don’t have anything left in the tank, especially when you look at the actions of the corporation. Somebody else has to give now.”

For example, he said both CEOs of the former companies are still in essentially the same job, which, although not a huge monetary issue, is “a slap in the face. They’re now on a year long tour.”

He added Queens MLA Vicki Conrad seems to be the only politician at this point who has talked with them about their predicament.

He said Premier Rodney MacDonald, NDP Leader Darrell Dexter and Liberal leader Stephen McNeil haven’t reach out to them.

In addition, he said Premier MacDonald’s assertions that the government helped Nova Scotia workers by purchasing land from the company isn’t true.

“We didn’t see any of that. None went to the community; it went straight to the CEOs and shareholders.”

He added other provinces have worked with the company to help workers and tie any assistance, such as inexpensive wood fibre on Crown land, to jobs.

“Our government is doing nothing. I mean nothing.”

In addition, he said, “(South Shore-St. Margarets MP) Gerald Keddy, where was he when we were going through all this? We never heard from him.”