Verso Paper’s acquisition of NewPage Holdings won’t change plans to idle one of the paper machines at NewPage’s Rumford mill and lay off approximately 140 workers in February, according to a union president.
The Bangor Daily News reported Ron Hemingway, who represents approximately 650 workers at the mill as president of the Local 900 United Steelworkers union, said he received confirmation Monday that Verso’s acquisition plan, expected to close in late 2014, would not affect the expected layoffs. In the long-term, Hemingway said he’s hopeful that the acquisition would lead to a different strategy for handling increasing competition from electronic substitutions and producers abroad. He said NewPage has, so far, responded by idling machines or shutting mills.
The Portland Press Herald reported the $1.4 billion dollar merger, still subject to regulatory approval, would create a paper mill company that would employ nearly one-third of all the paper industry workers in the state.
