Eastern Fine denied federal aid Baldacci supports appeal for NAFTA to help 50 displaced workers

BREWER – The U.S. Department of Labor has denied Eastern Fine Paper’s request for federal assistance to help about 50 of its workers who were laid off last year.

U.S. Rep. John Baldacci, who is not satisfied with the decision, said Wednesday that an appeal is being reviewed. “The Department of Labor will work with the company, workers, or both and fine tune the appeal so it better meets the requirements of the U.S. Department of Labor,” he said. The congressman, along with state labor and union officials, said it was not unusual for these applications to be denied.

The company, on behalf of its laid-off workers, filed for Trade Adjustment Assistance and programs available under the Northern American Free Trade Agreement. Both requests were denied earlier this month. The programs offer aid for extended unemployment benefits, child care, transportation and job-training services to workers displaced because of foreign competition.

In the denials, federal officials said their investigation revealed the criteria regarding sales, production or both, had not been met.

“Plant sales and production increased during the relevant period,” the finding stated. It went on to say that there was no shift in production to Mexico or Canada.

“The finding by the government is unfortunate,” Douglas Walsh, the company’s vice president of operations, said Wednesday. “This hurts the displaced workers, not the company. All we were trying to do is help these people.”

About 50 workers at the Brewer mill were laid off last November when the company shut down the mill’s oldest and smallest paper machine. In September, the Brewer mill’s parent company, Eastern Pulp and Paper Corp., filed for protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code.

Walsh said the application forms looked only at annual averages and did not allow for a representation of the true picture. He said the company attempted to further explain its position to no avail.

“Apparently the only criteria considered are production and gross sales revenue on an annual basis,” the company official said.

Walsh said in comparing 1999 and 2000, the company’s production and sales revenue did not decrease on a calendar year basis.

“However, during the same time frame, the cost of manufacturing has risen dramatically, and cheap imports from Canada have kept paper prices depressed in some of our markets,” he said. “Consequently, Eastern’s profitability decreased to the point that we could not sustain further losses of this magnitude. This is why the No. 3 paper machine was shut down and employees were laid off at the end of last year.”

Walsh said in comparing the last two months of 2000 to the first 10 months of the year, production and sales revenues were both down by about 15 percent.

Duane Lugdon, an official of the Paper, Allied Chemical and Energy Workers International Union, said an application for workers at Georgia Pacific’s Woodland plant also was turned down, but now is being appealed.

When workers are laid off, on average about 60 percent opt to find new employment, Ron Brodeur, an official of the state’s Department of Labor, said Wednesday.

The department typically works with between 30 and 40 percent of the remaining displaced workers to look for some type of retraining opportunities.

Brodeur said various services to help laid-off workers get back to work are available at the department’s Career Center in Bangor, or at a temporary transition center now being set up in Howland.

“We will not turn anyone away from any of our centers,” the state labor officials said.