Baileyville mill closing to affect 80 workers

BAILEYVILLE – Workers at Georgia-Pacific Corp. oriented strand board mill have been told that the facility has suspended production temporarily until spring.

The shutdown begins Dec. 21.

The shutdown will affect 80 hourly employees. The mill produces composite board for the building trades industry.

Company officials in Atlanta blamed the shutdown on market conditions. Although 80 employees received notice this week, company officials said Thursday, that 45 hourly and salaried employees will be retained for administrative and some limited-operation functions. In the past, employees have been used for maintenance projects.

This is not the first time the OSB mill has been shut down. Last year the mill went down from Dec. 26 until March of this year, affecting about 70 workers.

In 1998, bad weather and poor market conditions were blamed for a shutdown that idled 70 workers. In 1997, the plant experienced four shutdowns, the last in November of that year.

“Well, it’s a thing we’ve seen in the past years, and everybody had hoped we wouldn’t see it again, but it’s not a big surprise,” Town Manager Jack Clukey said Thursday. “We had thought G-P was looking for a buyer for all the mills and there would be more stable work if somebody would come in and buy them. That would be the ultimate way to secure the jobs, would be for a different owner who would be able to come in and invest.”

G-P earlier this year sold the town’s third mill, a pulp and paper operation that employs nearly 600 people, to Montreal-based Domtar Industries Inc. Officials there are optimistic that production will continue through the new year.

The nearby chip-n-saw mill, which produces dimensional lumber for the building industry, has seen its share of shutdowns, the most recent in July 2000. That shutdown was supposed to last only a few months but it has been 18 months since the plant has been in operation. That shutdown also was blamed on market conditions.

The town manager said the town has worked with the pulp and paper mill owners to encourage capital investments, including a tax increment finance package that would help G-P and now Domtar.