workers ate and succeeded nicl:
roducing a er qi pl

The company has allowed

ee input in the aim for a better prod-

uct.

“We really have stessed the quality
aspect to him (the owner) and he has
been listening,” says Connolly. “He
has let the operators set the machines
up properly and slow production
down a little in favour of a higher
grade product.”

Nowadays there are much better
quality control procedures in place.
Before there was some problem with
the delaminate, but not any more.
When there are no production prob-
Jems the plant can produce over | mil-
lion square feet of plywood per week.

Eric Barrieau, who has worked in
the plant since it started up in the ear-
ly 1960's, says the crew is glad to be
back to work and wants to do the best
job possible. Over the years he has
served as a union representative in
various capacities and still is the man
to contact when serious problems
arise.

to
operator Billy Steward.

New Brunswick plywood plant survives tough times
but faces stiff competition for future log supply

IWA-CANADA, a national union,
stretches from the Pacific coast to the
Atlantic coast. Most of the union’s
members work in British Columbia
and Ontario, with many members
scattered throughout the prairie
provinces. In the maritime province
region of Atlantic Canada, the only
province to have IWA members is
New Brunswick.

To this day there remains two IWA
operations in the province which has
a cerification known as 1-306. Those
operations are the Nelson Forest
Products plywood mill in Nelson Mi-
ramichi and the Miramichi Forest
Products stud mill in Miramichi.

The Lumberworker spoke recently
with some of the members at the Nel-
son Forest Products operation after
the mill reopened following a four
year shutdown. In 1990, before the
shutdown, the mill was known as
Burchill Plywood. The prices for ply-
wood were bottoming out and the mill
was in bad need of technological up-
grading.

patrick.

Four years later the operation is up
and running. Markets have come back
and the mill is working up to three
shifts a day. In addition, new manage-
ment, assisted by the workers, has
spent a bundle of money ($5-6 mil-
lion) on upgrading the mill.

The results have been that the ply-
wood mill has turned around and is in
the black again. Thanks to some pa-
tience, a lot of faith, and some smart
moves by local business man Robbie
Tozer, the mill now employs up to 120
union members.

The mill produces spruce/pine/fir
and poplar plywood in thicknesses
from 3/8” to 3/4”. It produces both a
sheathing and a select grade and also
puts out a tongue and groove product.

Prior to the mill's reopening in the
last week of May this year, a new ring
debarker was installed. Also at the
green end of the plant, two new log
ponds were installed. They are heated
from a new hog burner and heat ex-
change system. In addition the dryer
was overhauled to cut down on drying

ars

Working at the finishing end of the plywood plant is saw operator Boyde Fitz-

times and cut down on the amount of
redries.

These new changes have made the
plant more efficient. The new covered
log ponds and heating system should
cut down the time necessary to thaw
out the logs in the cold winter
months.

The whole crew is happy to be back
to work, says Paul Connolly, a former
local union president who has worked
in the heat plant for 22 years. He says
the company and the crew are hoping
to work about nine months a year on
production if things go as planned.

It was a very lean four years for
many of the union members who
numbered up to 140 at the time of the
1990 closure. Many had to rely on UIC
and then welfare to survive during the
past four years. Miramichi is a forest
dependent community which relies on
the Repap pulp mill, logging, and
sawmilling. Outside of the forest in-
dustry there are few opportunities to
get good paying jobs. So it was a great.
relief to the community when the mill
fired up again last May.

Brother Connolly says that the

Photos courtesy Local

Brother Barrieau says that the mill

|g should be in good shape as long as
markets and timber supply last. Work-

ers have been told there is a 15 year
supply of old growth in the region.
There is a lot of competition for logs
in that region of the province between
the pulp and the sawlog sector.

“The timber supply is there but
we've always got to fight for it,” says
Barrieau.

In years past the sawmill used to
get the butts and middle portions.
Now the mill usually gets the butt por-
tion of the local spruce that have di-
ameters in the 12”-16” range. Pine
usually measures an average of 17”,
The middle portion of the tree goes to
the Repap mill and to two sawmills in
the area.

A new oriented strand board plant,
owned by Eagle, is scheduled to begin
construction soon. That operation will
consume poplar. So there are some
concerns that the Nelson Forest Prod-
ucts mill will have a tougher time get-
ting the hardwood species in the years
ahead.

The mill’s lathe peels down to a
four inch core. That can be improved
quite a bit as there are lathe that can
peel down to a less that two inch
core. Currently the kicked out cores
are sold locally for fence posts or are
made into 2 by 4’s. In the future the
mill may install a chip and saw system
to use up the cores.

After the closure and prior to get-
ting the plant up and producing again,
the workers negotiated a three year
collective agreement. They negotiated
a 2% increase in pay in the first two
years of the deal and a further 2% in-
crease in the last year. As part of the
back to work agreement the workers
agreed to kick in $600,000 to the mill's
upgrading. This has been paid by a
$1.00/hr. per employee basis.

Handling spruce veneer are dryer graders John Morris (1.) and Larry Mahoney.

‘GLUMBERWORKER/MARCH, 't995