woodfibre closing

[rat]

fucked up.

 

http://thetyee.ca/News/2005/12/29/SquamishClosure/

[TREETOAD]

Lets keep shipping those raw logs, fucked up is right !!

[crazyjizzy]

Just one in a long line of Mill closures, Weyerhauser in Everett and Cosmopolis, ITT-Rayonier in PA, lots more. In the US, and I am sure it is similar in Canada, the big players are comsolidating their mill operations. Woodfibre was unreachable except by boat, which would have made maintainence a nightmare. Having been to a pulp mill or two, I could tell from miles away that Woodfibre was just an old mill.

[JoshK]

Sorry for the ignorance, but isn't a pulp mill closing generally a good thing? I tend to recall them stinking up everything within a large radius. Workers losing their jobs is tho...

[AlpineK]

Sorry for the ignorance, but isn't a pulp mill closing generally a good thing? I tend to recall them stinking up everything within a large radius. Workers losing their jobs is tho...

 

Workers who've earned a living wage and supported families who are now forced to earn minimum wage if any wage at all is not a good thing.

[JoshK]

Yes, quite obviously....just curious because it seems most of the time people on here are happy when logging operations and the like move away. I'm glad to see that people actually notice when, yet again, big companies fuck over families and communities for profits. I guess that is just the way it works though...

[murraysovereign]

Don't be too quick to jump on WFP for finally shutting down Woodfibre. Yes, it's going to hurt a lot of people who have been making a good living there for many years. But that mill has been losing money for years now and there's no law, nor even any reasonable expectation, that a company should have to continue operating an outdated plant in the face of increasing losses just to protect their workers from economic reality. Frankly, I think WFP deserves some credit for hanging in as long as they did, and for coming forward with a pretty generous severance package for their workers when they finally had no choice but to throw in the towel. In fact, the biggest concern among many of the workers now is that someone may come forward with a plan to save the mill, so their severance will be lost, then the mill will shut down again in a few months anyhow, and they'll really be screwed because then they'll get nothing but a kick in the ass.

And yes, it was shitty getting the news a couple of weeks before Christmas, but the company was required by securities regulations to announce the closure as soon as the decision was taken. And would they really have been doing anyone any favours by stringing them along for another month, or two, or three before springing it on them the day of their last shift? I say they did the right thing by letting people know, now, that the mill is closing in March, so they can start, now, planning what they're going to do next. It's a far cry better than Interfor's treatment of their workers at the Squamish Sawmill. That mill was closed for years, and the company kept playing everyone the same cheery song that they were just weeks away from maybe reopening, on a limited basis, for a short time with maybe one or two shifts, but there's more stuff being planned, so just hang in there and we'll be back up and running again someday real soon - you just wait. And wait, and wait, and wait... until everyone had finally dropped off the seniority lists, and they didn't have to pay severance to anyone no matter how long they'd worked their butts off for Interfor. And then and only then did they finally announce - surprise!! - the mill's being shut down and sold for scrap and the property is being redeveloped. And Interfor made a bundle selling the property, and the workers got nothing.

So as unfortunate as it is, I wouldn't be too critical of WFP either for the decision to close the mill down, or for the way they've handled it.

[JoshK]

good perspective, murray.

[Dru]

jobs come to town, jobs leave town

 

 

when the olympics are on tv in 2010, you aint gonna see any shots of the squamish pulp mill. thats what its all about

[JoshK]

Dru, do you know what events are going to be held where? I imagine lots of stuff up in the hills since Vancouver is about as "wintry" as seattle. It's good to see the 99 getting improved. I'm surprised more deadly accidents don't occur on that stretch of highway.

[Dru]

They are going to hold the arena type events like hockey in Vancouver, and the winter type events that need snow or luge courses, at Whistler, and never the twain shall meet.

[snoboy]

There's some snowboard stuff on the North Shore too I think.

[Dru]

Yeah, cause you can jib on grass.