Deal struck
to save
Jobs at

After months of nervous anticipation,
this northern Ontario of 11,000 has
been relieved to hear that Spruce Falls
Power and Paper company’s giant
pulp and newsprint mill won't be shut-
ting down its operations and pulling
the plug on the town.

Following months of exhaustive
negotiations the Ontario government,
union workers, the community of
Kapuskasing, and Tembec Inc. have
stuck a deal with a large U.S. com-
pany to salvage most of the operation.

Since late-1990 Kimberley-Clark
Corp. of Dallas was holding the com-
munity to ransom as it threatened to
close down 3 of 4 newsprint machines
if it couldn’t sell a hydro power plant
that it owned.

The threat of losing 1,200 jobs in
the mill and bush operations brought
the community together as union
members joined with other Kapus-
kasing citizens and the Ontario gov-
ernment to help strike a deal with
Kimberley-Clark, Spruce Falls’ major-
ity owner.

In a new arrangement, employees
and citizens of Kapuskasing will pay
an initial $12.5 million for 60% of the
new company while Tembec Inc., a
Montreal-based pulp and paper out-
fit, will takeover the remaining 40%.

Ontario Premier Bob Rae person-
ally sat in on negotiations which saw
Ontario Hydro, a. provincial crown
company, pay Spruce Falls’ two share-
owners — Kimberley-Clark and New
York Times — $140 million for the
Smoky Falls hydroelectric station on
the Matagami River, about 40 km
north of the town.

ing shop.

For IWA-CANADA Local 1-2995,
which has its union headquarters in
Kapuskasing, the deal which was
negotiated before a deadline in mid-
August, will ensure most of its mem-
bers who work in bush operations will
remain employed.

The IWA represents about 200 log-
gers and mechanics who supply the
milling operations with the majority
of its raw materials. That number of
workers can expand to over 350 in the
season when wood harvesting is
highest.

The pulp and paper complex exists
on timber lands of over 2,500 square
miles which provide an annual allow-
able cut of 1.2 million cubic metres of
coniferous tree species. In addition
the timber limits have annual allow-
able cuts of 400,000 cubic metres of
hardwoods which haven't tradition-
ally been used in pulp and paper.

According to local union president
Norman Rivard the settlement will

Three year contract
ends Abitibi strike

THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO — On
August 25 IWA-CANADA Local 1-2693
ratified a three-year agreement with
Abitibi-Price Inc. which saw a return
to work after the Labour Day week-
end. Nearly 200 Union members were
out since February in one of the
lengthier bushworker strikes in recent
years. %

In June Abitibi shut down two
papermachines in Thunder Bay, for at
least two years, effecting over 400
CPU Local 134 members. As a spinoff
result, about 70 IWA jobs will be lost
in the future.

“It was difficult to go back to work
knowing there will ultimately be some
job losses,” said IWA Local 1-2693
president Wilf McIntyre.

However, many workers will still
maintain employment in tree plant-
ing and silvicultural work.

IWA local unions in northern
Ontario have agreements which spec-
ify that they have first right of refusal
for any planting or silvicultural work
on company logging claims. They also
have contract language which states
that outside contractors will also be
Union members too.

This year Union members will be
busy doing site preparation, delimb-
ing, and wood hauling.

The Union worker will receive the
three-year wage pattern of 85 cents in
the first year, and 54% increase in
each of the two remaining years.

Other contract improvements will
see a 23% increase in pension funding
by the employer and various benefit
package upgrading. Also, for the first
time, employees will benefit from a
new Vision Care program.

The IWA bushworkers are employed
at Abitibi’s River Road Division
where pickets appeared throughout
the strike.

Local 1-2693 has successfully nego-
tiated agreements in bush operations
earlier this year with E-B Eddy, Cana-
dian Pacific Forest Products, Kim-
berly-Clark, and Domtar.

Union members supply about
100,000 cubic metres of wood for
Abitibi’s Provincial Division kraft
paper mill which produces fine papers.
They also cut and haul over 300,000
cubic metres of wood to Abitibi’s Mis-
sion pulp mill.

see the maintenance of IWA jobs at
two logging divisions and see union
workers get first crack at the harvest-
ing of any surplus wood.

However, the new business plan for
the plant will see some moderniza-
tions, and downsizing and the even-
tual loss of over 700 of the 1,400
existing jobs at Spruce Falls and that
may have some impact on woodlands
operations.

« “How much we are going to be
effected if we are effected is unknown
at this point,” says Brother Rivard.

Along with CPU Local 89 and Local
256, IBEW Local 1149, and OPEIU
Local 166, the IWA has bargained a
three-year agreement in a coalition
arrangement which will see all unions
have a common contract expiring date
in October of 1994.

In the IWA negotiating committee
were Brother Rivard, Martin Din-
nisson, Art Proulx, Gaston Chabot,
Andre Tourigny, and George Dufresne.

“

TWA-CANADA members will receive
an 8.5% wage increase in the second
and third year of the collective agree-
ment and retain full pension benefits.

At press time Tembec Says it may
shutdown one paper machine but, if
markets improve, the company wants
to keep them all running.

Eventually the mill will require over
$300 million worth of modernization.
A good portion of that money will be
realized in the form of hydro power
credits, which Ontario Hydro has
agreed to provide over the next 10
years,

As part of the new modernization,
Tembecis looking at including a state-
of-the-art aspen/black spruce pulp
machine which will help make effi-
cient use of hardwoods in the bush.

Qut in the bush the company is
looking at introducing faster cutting
heads for its feller buncher machines
which will also be able to handle more
stems per cut.

e Timber cutter and Local 1-2995 union member Oliver Rickard is one of the bush-
workers to be affected by the new arrangement.

14/LUMBERWORKER/NOVEMBER, 1991