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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Tembec locks out 300 workers

Employees get ultimatum on 35% cut in wages, benefits

By: Martin Cash

Posted: 09/1/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Tembec workers have been laid off four times this year for a total of 12 weeks. (KEN GIGLIOTTI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES)

Close to 300 workers at Tembec's Powerview-Pine Falls newsprint plant were to be locked out at midnight Monday night only one week after being called back to work after an extensive shut down.

Union officials said the troubled forestry product company gave workers an "ultimatum" to accept a new contract that included wage and benefits concessions totalling 35 per cent.

"We're prepared to do our part to cut costs," said Wayne Skrypnyk, United Steelworkers area supervisor. "But when we asked to see the breakdown of the cost containment measures being made throughout the operation, we were told we had to agree to the concession before they will talk about other cost containment activities."

In addition to the 260 USW workers close to 20 office workers will also be affected by the lock out.

Skrypnyk said his members were not prepared to shoulder all the cost cutting when, he said, company executives received substantial increased in their bonuses over the past couple of years.

He said the union's legal advisers are investigating whether or not a claim can be made with the provincial labour board regarding bad faith bargaining.

Workers had already been out on an extended shut down and were called back to work only one week ago which was one week ahead of schedule.

Now Skrypnyk believes company officials were planning on a lock out all along and needed the workers back to allow for an orderly shut down.

Pine Falls workers have been laid off four times this year for a total of 12 weeks. The longest plant shutdown was for six weeks in June and July. The other three -- one over the Christmas-New Year period, another in February, and the most recent one that began Aug. 11 -- were for two weeks each.

The USW collective agreement ended Monday. Talks to renew the contract only began in mid-August and according to Skrypnyk consisted of the company demanding concessions with no room for the union to negotiate.

John Valley, Tembec's executive vice-president, business development and corporate affairs, would not comment on the lock out or the collective bargaining agreement situation.

But he did say that the industry in a critical state.

"We have seen a profound structural decline in demand for newsprint," Valley said. "The newsprint industry is in the most challenging period it has ever faced."

Valley said low newsprint prices and higher Canadian dollar has negatively affected the market, but "the principal and critical issue is the dramatic over-supply of newsprint."

He said newsprint sites will have to close and those that survive must be cost competitive.

Tembec's Manitoba newsprint operations is the largest employer by far in the town of Powerview-Pine Falls, located about 130 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.

The newsprint plant has had a rocky recent history with a couple of changes of ownership and more than $100 million in capital investments at the beginning of the decade.

But industry officials say that new Canadian subsidies for pulp plants and a new loop hole that has allowed the newsprint industry in the U.S. to receive tax credits is making it even harder for Canadian newsprint plants to survive.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 1, 2009 B3

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