Labor officials to assist laid-off GNP workers

The Maine Department of Labor today will begin holding a series of informational meetings for the 1,033 workers who have been temporarily laid off at Great Northern Paper Inc.’s Millinocket and East Millinocket paper mills.

Dave Conroe, the tri-county Rapid Response coordinator, said the purpose of the meetings was to provide workers with information about unemployment insurance and of efforts under way to assist them.

Representatives from the Bureau of Unemployment and the Bureau of Employment Services will be on hand at the following times and places: at 6 p.m. Tuesday, at the Stearns High School gym in Millinocket; 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Stearns High School library; and at 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday, at Schenck High School in East Millinocket.

Union officials said workers should obtain unemployment applications at the Katahdin Area Education and Training Center in East Millinocket.

Meanwhile, the Department of Labor is gearing up to obtain certification for workers at Great Northern’s East Millinocket paper mill for federal Trade Adjustment Assistance and to amend a National Emergency Grant.

Adam Fisher, the assistant commissioner, said if a company or workers could demonstrate that a layoff or plant closing could be attributed to foreign competition, they could become eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance, a federal program. “That is only if the company closes or has a big layoff,” he said.

Fisher said Great Northern’s employees at the Millinocket mill were approved for federal Trade Adjustment Assistance as the result of an earlier layoff. He said the program allows for extended unemployment benefits, retraining and relocation benefits.

Unemployment benefits typically run for 26 weeks, but the federal government just approved extending the benefits for an additional 13 weeks to people who had already exhausted their benefits, said Fisher.

Fisher said the NEG grant would provide the state with additional funds to provide services such as peer support and job search assistance to displaced workers.

Fisher said Maine was the only state in the country that required certain companies, such as commercial or industrial facilities employing 100 or more people, to pay severance to permanently laid-off workers. He said that under some circumstances employers are exempt, for example, if an employer relocates or ceases its operations as the result of a fire, flood or other natural disaster, or the final order of any federal, state or local governmental agency including adjudicated bankruptcy.

Local 37 of the Paper, Allied Chemical and Energy Workers International Union will meet at 3 p.m. Tuesday at Schenck High School.