Paper watch | A roundup of pulp and paper news from the March 23, 2009, issue of Mainebiz
No industry appears safe from the recession, but the pulp and paper industry has been hit especially hard lately. While some workers who were temporarily laid off have been called back to work, the news has been dreary for most of the industry, prompting a call from an industry player for the state to step up and help pulp and paper grow. Here’s a roundup:
A new batch of orders put most of the furloughed workers at Katahdin Paper Co. in East Millinocket back on the job this month. The Fraser paper mill, which is owned by Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management, furloughed 140 of roughly 500 of its workers Feb. 6 in response to a decline in orders, the Bangor Daily News reported. But most of those workers were back to work as of March 9.
Elsewhere, workers are facing layoffs and pay cuts. Montreal-based Domtar Corp. plans to shut down its pulp mill in Baileyville for an indeterminate amount of time beginning in May, affecting approximately 330 employees. On March 2, Sappi Fine Paper North America laid off 70 salaried employees companywide, affecting an undisclosed number of workers at Somerset Mill in Skowhegan, which employs a total of 900, according to the Morning Sentinel. Lincoln Paper and Tissue is temporarily laying off 17 workers, eliminating shifts for maintenance workers and cutting salaried employees’ pay by 15% for three months beginning in mid-March, according to a company press release. And Ohio-based NewPage Corp. is temporarily shutting down its Rumford mill for a week beginning March 22, just weeks after announcing 130 layoffs. The freeze affects most of the mill’s remaining 860 employees.
Memphis, Tenn.-based Verso Paper, which operates paper mills in Bucksport and Jay, released a report March 17 that calls on Maine’s government to take a more active approach to preserving the state’s paper industry. The report, “Maine on paper: An industry we can’t afford to lose,” details the challenges facing the paper industry and how Maine officials can help tackle them. The report urges the state to support approval of an LNG terminal to diversify the state’s fuel base and combat rising energy costs, and pushes for a revolving loan fund for railroads that would pay for track upgrades or new equipment to alleviate transportation issues.
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