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Mill union, company still talking
CARL CLUTCHEY
08/21/2009

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About 700 unionized workers at Thunder Bay‘s struggling AbitibiBowater pulp and paper operation will likely vote on a tentative agreement a day or two after senior union officials meet with their company counterparts in Ottawa next week.

Reached Wednesday night, the deal is expected to result in “operational changes” to help keep the high-cost mill in production. No details were released.

A similar exercise two years ago between union and management negotiators saved the Thunder Bay operation nearly $17 million, but also required the loss of about 170 jobs.

Company officials emphasized Thursday that the plant‘s newsprint division – already shut down several times this spring – could still be idled again, as early as today.

“We have been making headway on our discussions with the union, but we are still missing a solution to our short-term needs on energy pricing,” AbitibiBowater spokesman Jean-Philippe Cote said from the company‘s Montreal head office.

It was once revealed that the Thunder Bay operation spends more than $50 million annually on electricity, the highest among AbitibiBowater mills.

The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union declined to comment Thursday on what could be in store for its members this time around, other than to say that the Aug. 26 meeting in Ottawa could be significant.

“They‘re going to give us a global outlook as to where their company is going to be,” said Toronto-based CEP administrative vice-president Kim Ginter.

The meeting is to be held in the boardroom of the CEP‘s national headquarters.

“They‘ve said they‘re going to take a million tonnes of newsprint off the market, so we need to see where they‘re going to end up,” Ginter said.

He said he‘s not saying yet whether the CEP will recommend that Thunder Bay workers vote in favour of the agreement that was reached Wednesday.

A week‘s worth of union-management discussions leading up to the agreement “came out positive,” said Ginter.
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