Western Forest Products to shut Nanaimo sawmill
The Western Forest Products sawmill in downtown Nanaimo is scheduled to be permanently closed by the end of the year, the forest company announced Monday.
The company plans to invest $ 10 million to modernize its Duke Point sawmill and will add another shift to coincide with the closure of the downtown facility.
Company spokeswoman Amy Spencer said the 62 employees working at the Nanaimo mill will be offered jobs at other company sites, including Duke Point, once a second shift is added. But Spencer couldn’t say Monday how many workers the second shift will entail.
She said the workers will also be offered severance packages in accordance with terms under the existing collective agreement with the United
The investments being made … are expected to … increase our recovery factors from log to lumber. DON DEMENS WESTERN FOREST PRODUCTS CEO
Steelworkers Local 1- 1937, which represents the workers at the downtown mill.
Spencer said the consolidation is intended to increase production at both the company’s Duke Point and Saltair mills and reduce costs.
Local union president Brian Butler said that from the union’s perspective, the workers never want to see any manufacturing plant in the province close.
But he said that under the circumstances, he is as “content” as he can be with the mill’s closing as long as his members get what they are entitled to under their contract.
Butler said company and union representatives informed mill workers Monday morning of the plan, and the mill was closed for the rest of the day to allow the workers some time to absorb the news.
“The investments being made at Duke Point and the consolidation of our Nanaimo sawmill operations are expected to reduce costs, improve our flexibility to produce different grades of lumber and increase our recovery factors from log to lumber,” said Don Demens, WFP’s president and CEO.
Spencer said the property on which WFP’s downtown mill is located is owned by the Nanaimo Port Authority and the company has begun talks with the NPA to discuss its plans and the dismantling of the mill.
WFP’s downtown mill was shut down in 2008 and was closed for almost two years while WFP worked to restructure its operations to meet its economic challenges and find new markets.
WFP reopened the mill with one production line in the fall of 2010 and hired back approximately 30 workers, which has risen to 62 since then, after successfully finding other markets in Asia and the rest of Canada to keep operations running.
The mill made national headlines in May when its plant chairman Michael Lunn and supervisor Fred McEachern were both shot dead on site, while supervisor Earl Kelly and vice- president of manufacturing Tony Sudar were wounded.
Former mill worker Kevin Douglas Addison has been charged with two counts of first- degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.