Williams got it right, says Miramichi union leader
Published Tuesday December 23rd, 2008
Forestry UPM-Kymmene manages Crown land until province decides future
A union leader in Miramichi urges Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams not to back down from AbitibiBowater (TSX:ABH).
Chris Allison, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union Local 689, wants New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham take the same tack in his dealings with UPM-Kymmene, which shut down its Miramichi paper mill last year.
Allison sent Williams a letter Monday pledging $10,000 from Local 689 to help the Newfoundland and Labrador government if AbitibiBowater files a lawsuit under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The company raised this possibility after the province took back AbitibiBowater's resource rights and hydro assets after it announced it intended to close its paper mill in Grand Falls-Windsor, N.L.
UPM-Kymmene still manages New Brunswick Crown land despite shutting down its Miramichi operation in August 2007 and announcing this year that it wants to get out of the province.
In September, the company hired contractors to "permanently disable" the two paper machines in its Miramichi mill.
The company destroyed the machines for "obvious competitive reasons," spokeswoman Sharon Pond said Monday. The two pulpmill sites in Miramichi, along with the sawmills in Blackville and Bathurst, are for sale.
UPM-Kymmene began to implement the plan approved by provincial Environment Minister Roland Haché to decommission the paper mill site, but will likely leave it to new owners to complete, Pond said.
UPM-Kymmene still operates its woodlands office at Miramichi to allow for a smooth transition when Natural Resources Minister Wally Stiles decides the future of the Crown lands under licence to the company, Pond said. "Yes, they're still managing the Crown licence," Pond said.
This rubs Allison the wrong way. "That's what the province allowed them to do," he said. "They should do what Danny Williams is doing in Newfoundland."
Wood from UPM-Kymmene's Crown licence goes to sublicense sawmills and other operations in New Brunswick, but the province does permit export of pulpwood that has no market in New Brunswick.
This, too, rubs Allison the wrong way. "Our resources can no longer be shipped out of the province as they are," he said in a letter to the editor published in Monday's Telegraph-Journal - a view that Graham himself supported in his days as Opposition Leader.
"Shipping unprocessed wood out of the province is wrong," the letter quotes Graham as saying on May 26, 2005.
"Shawn Graham was a different man when he was leader of the Opposition," Allison said Monday.
Allison wrote the letter in response to news that UPM-Kymmene signed a 10-year agreement to ship paper products from Europe through the port of Baltimore.
"Baltimore's inland location, outstanding distribution network and good labour force make it a winning location for UPM cargo," Angelo LaMantia, UPM's director of North America supply chain, said in a Dec. 8 news release.
"The port contract sends a strong message to UPM's customers and competitors that the company is committed to the North American paper market," the news release states. The contract will result in 120 direct jobs, UPM-Kymmene stated.
The Miramichi region lost 400 jobs when UPM-Kymmene closed its kraft pulpmill in 2004, and another 650 when the rest of the operation closed last year.
The losses came on top of 140 jobs lost when Weyerhaeuser closed its oriented strand board mill in Miramichi in December, 2006. Bathurst lost 267 jobs when Smurfit-Stone Container closed its pulpmill in August 2005. Dalhousie lost 350 jobs when AbitibiBowater closed its newsprint mill in January 2008.
The province has since handed management of AbitibiBowater's Crown licence to AV Cell, which runs a mill in Atholville. The province has revoked Weyerhaeuser's licence.
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