A vote and a region

Union workers at Great Northern Paper Co. still don’t know whether the new offer from Inexcon is as strong as possible, but they know it is a real improvement over the offer that stood last week. And they know that the entire proposal for Inexcon’s purchase of the Millinocket and East Millinocket mills is fragile and depends on their giving up some of the benefits they had come to expect.

It is no wonder that the word is the negotiating committee for the Paper, Allied Chemical and Energy Workers International Union will recommend that union members support the latest proposal.

The new offer honors a pay increase that took effect Aug. 1 under the unions’ contract with Bowater, improves the health-insurance package and increases the contract-signing bonus. Union members, who probably would much rather spend their time making the paper for which they are renown than analyzing a benefit package, have bargained hard and with good reason. Bowater advertises it industry-leading return on investment even as it claims it can’t afford to continue in Maine. The company’s threat to close the Millinocket mill — or perhaps both of them — if the union didn’t come to agreement with Inexcon did more to cast suspicion on the contract offer than anything else.

Nevertheless, Inexcon has made a significant new proposal, well above the place it began. True, the proposal’s health coverage isn’t great by the old standards, but that’s the trend nationwide across all industries. Pay is still frozen for several years, but at a higher level. The bonus went from $3,000 to $5,000. More importantly, Inexcon’s Lambert Bedard demonstrated he would listen to union concerns and act on them. Whether that will always be the case can be determined only in the years to come. But practically and symbolically, the offer was a positive sign.

When production workers fill out their ballots on the improved offer today, they will be taking another step in the long process that began in 1898, when the Magic City emerged from the wilderness as an answer to the growing strength of the International Paper Co. The Northern wasn’t built as just a company, it was a way of life and, according to UMaine historian Richard Judd, Millinocket bloomed complete with an enormous hydroelectric plant, city water utilities, a library, hotels, several business blocks and homes for thousands of workers. All, of course, centered on the mill and its owners.

Many things changed in the ensuing century, especially in the last 13 years, but the dependence on the mill remains. Union members have no choice but to recognize this. They will make their difficult choice with a strangely silent state government and with the knowledge that a region depends on their answer. Their leaders bargained well; Inexcon listened and responded. These days, that’s a lot.