PORTAGE LAKE – Loggers and truckers working for J.D. Irving’s Maine Woodlands operations have agreed to begin a work stoppage this morning in an effort to push their employer into negotiating a new contract, according to a spokesman for the workers.

The loggers and truckers voted 47-3 on Friday to form the International Loggers Association, and to park their equipment and not return to work until they and Irving can develop a new contract, said Dean Plourde, a disabled former trucker who spoke for the group on Saturday.

“The governor is aware of the situation and he is hopeful an agreement can be reached,” a spokesman for Gov. John Baldacci said Sunday afternoon.

“Mills are already in short supply, and wood fiber is needed,” said Lee Umphrey. “Any work stoppage would create more hardships.”

A truckers contract expired on Dec. 31 and the workers have refused to sign a new one offered by the company, Plourde said. Most of the loggers, who usually negotiate new contracts in the spring, agreed to stop work in solidarity with the truckers, he said.

The loggers and truckers have scheduled a press conference for 11 a.m. today at Dean’s Hotel at Portage Lake to explain their positions, Plourde said.

Umphrey said he thought someone from one of the northern offices of the state Department of Conservation would attend to monitor the situation.

Meanwhile, an Irving official said over the weekend that the company had put together a package with “significant increases.”

“We understand contractors are struggling, the forest industry is struggling,” said Chuck Gadzik, operations manager for J.D. Irving’s Maine Woodlands. “We understand a number of contractors are pleased [with the contract that was offered] and will operate, while others are looking for other work.”

According to Gadzik, Irving has 27 logging contractors and 40 to 50 trucking contractors in the Maine woods. He said the company is looking to keep its people, knowing there is a shortage of workers in the Maine woods.

He said the company has offered a 10 percent increase in logging rates, a 12 percent increase in off-highway trucking rates and a 7 percent increase for highway trucking rates.

Friday’s meeting was the third meeting loggers have held since mid-December, when Irving offered a new contract for 2004. Loggers and truckers have said they are seeking increases of 25 percent to 30 percent in logging and trucking rates, and surcharge payments to help cover the cost of diesel fuel, which has risen to more than $1.45 per gallon.

“The vote was a secret ballot so there would not be any pressure on anyone,” Plourde said. “We did not want a show of hands because that could have pressured some to vote like their friends wanted them to.”

He said Friday’s meeting and vote took about five hours and that the workers were “looking to get a new contract, one developed by them and the company, not just dictated by the company.”

Gadzik would not say what kind of an impact a stoppage might have on the operation of Irving lumber mills in Maine, New Brunswick and Quebec.

He also would not comment on current wood supplies at the mills, saying only, “We will deal with it on a day-to-day basis.”

The last time truckers went on strike against Irving was three years ago. Truckers stayed out of the woods for most of a week before returning to work with a renegotiated contract that gave them a rate increase.

Troy Jackson, an independent state representative from Fort Kent, said the current agreement proposed by Irving allows the company to end the contract at any time, change rates, and even use a contractor’s equipment to finish a job, if the contractor walks off the job.

The workers “are trying to get the company to negotiate with them in good faith,” said Jackson, a logger himself.

Jackson was one of the ringleaders involved in a well-publicized blockade of some woods roads and a border crossing four years ago.

Jackson has since been elected to the Legislature and has introduced several bills dealing with the logging industry.

“Legislation has been proposed in the last year to help loggers dealing with companies,” he said over the weekend. “We will go back at it [the legislation] in the coming weeks and months.”

Loggers and truckers “are small-business men, and it’s time for the state to step up and help them,” Jackson said. “Companies are trying to kill bills that would help them organize and negotiate.”

Many of the truckers and loggers reached over the weekend said they would not be working Monday. But the men said they did not want to be quoted or named for fear of reprisals from the company.