Loggers’ continued work stoppage blamed on Baldacci, Irving

FORT KENT – Northern Maine loggers and truckers participating in a work stoppage against Irving Woodlands didn’t return to work Thursday because the company and Gov. John Baldacci wouldn’t agree to stipulations sought by the workers on Wednesday night.

Thursday was the 18th day that some of them had stayed away from work on Irving Woodlands.

Baldacci wouldn’t agree to not veto a bill that would allow independent logging and trucking contractors to negotiate rates with landowners, Maine Commissioner of Conservation Patrick McGowan said Thursday.

Workers hadn’t heard from Irving by Thursday afternoon about their stipulation that contractors who worked for the company before the stoppage should still have a job.”We haven’t received any word from anyone,” Dean Plourde, International Loggers Association spokesman, said Thursday. “I don’t know why the company would not agree to use all the contractors that were involved [in the stoppage].

“It’s because they had no intention of hiring back everyone after this situation was done,” Plourde said. “If mills are low on wood fiber, why won’t they put everyone back to work?”

A company official looked at the issue differently.

“We are going to make every effort to get the operation back up to previous levels,” Chuck Gadzik, Maine operations manager for Irving Woodlands, said Thursday afternoon. “Some contractors have moved on, and the nature of our operation changes from day to day. We are never in a position to make that sort of guarantee to anyone at anytime,” Gadzik said.

He also said he had not been asked about the guarantee of jobs for contractors by anyone except people from the media.

The governor’s office did not return telephone calls on the issue Thursday.

Plourde said association members will discuss the situation and make some decisions at a meeting Friday afternoon.

The conflict in the northern Maine woods began Jan. 5, when workers who had formed the International Loggers Association on Dec. 26 walked off the job.

The truckers had refused to sign a new contract offered by Irving after their old one expired Dec. 31. Loggers, who usually negotiate new contracts in the spring, stopped work in solidarity with the truckers.

The workers are seeking 25 to 30 percent increases in logging and trucking rates and surcharge payments when diesel fuel costs rise above $1.45 per gallon.

Irving 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. The company offered a surcharge when diesel fuel reaches $1.55 per gallon.

The company changed the offer last week, offering an additional 2 percent for every category if contractors agreed to participate in an efficiency-productivity program.

Irving Woodlands supplies wood fiber to about 30 mills. The company had 27 logging contractors and 40 to 50 trucking contractors before the work stoppage began.

McGowan was asked Wednesday night to make the stipulations known to the governor and Irving.

“We have not agreed to any conditions,” the commissioner said Thursday. “We cannot tell the company to take back all the contractors, but I believe they need everyone who has ability to bring wood to mills.”

“The governor does like the way the bill they want is drafted,” McGowan said. “It has statewide ramifications that would affect every landowner in Maine.”

He said issues facing loggers and truckers will be raised before a recently organized Governor’s Council on the Sustainability of the Forest Products Industry in Maine.

On Wednesday night at Portage Lake, loggers and truckers were frustrated that they were receiving little assistance from the state. Several said state officials were worried more about mill workers than loggers and truckers.

“Tell them we will go back to our $4 an hour jobs to make sure that guys making $20 and $30 an hour in the mills are still working,” trucker Tony Theriault said. “We will make that sacrifice.”

Plourde and workers said they were frustrated that Irving and the state would not acknowledge their association. Several said they were “very disappointed.”