Katahdin millworkers eye possible layoff strategies

MILLINOCKET – Millinocket and East Millinocket millworkers might hear today exactly who among them will get pink slips as Katahdin Paper Co. LLC officials are expected to meet with their union counterparts, union officials said.

“We are going to discuss what’s going to happen if the [Millinocket] mill shuts down,” Terry Whirty, president of United Steel Workers Local 12, said Tuesday. “We have an international [union] rep coming in, and we are due to meet with the company tomorrow.”

He declined to comment further.

Katahdin Paper announced last Thursday plans to close its Katahdin Avenue paper mill and lay off 208 workers on July 28 because of runaway oil costs.

Unless an alternative energy source is found, the mill would close despite having booked orders through 2008 for catalogs, magazines and retail industry fliers on its No. 11 machine, one of the newest machines in the country, because the plant is almost entirely fueled by oil.

It burned more than 400,000 barrels of oil last year, company officials said.

The East Millinocket mill, which employs about 350 people making telephone directory paper, would also suffer “curtailment,” company officials said, but they haven’t specified what that means.

It might be a reference to a union practice known as “bumping,” in which more senior union members get to keep their jobs because of their seniority. Bumping is expected to occur with Millinocket workers reassigned to East Millinocket and East Millinocket workers laid off, if the indefinite shutdown occurs, union officials said.

Glenn Saucier, Katahdin Paper’s spokesman, did not return an e-mail and a telephone call seeking comment Tuesday. Company officials said he had been in meetings for almost the whole day.

Meanwhile, the Penobscot County Transition Team will meet at 10 this morning at Stearns High School in Millinocket to try to help workers who expect to be laid off, said Jennifer Brooks, community relations manager for Penquis, a Bangor social service agency helping to coordinate efforts to help displaced workers if layoffs occur.

The team consists of area social service organizations, local and state government agencies, federal delegation representatives, businesses, unions, churches and community leaders who try to provide coordinated services and programming to laid-off workers and others affected by the layoff, complementing assistance provided by the Maine Department of Labor’s CareerCenter.

“We talk about the needs of all those affected by the layoffs in the community,” said Adam Fisher, spokesman for the state Department of Labor. “Whenever there is a layoff like this, there’s also a secondary impact on other workers in the community and other people who rely on the mill.

“The team looks at all the different services out there and ensures that agencies are working together in a coordinated way to serve the population and the community,” he added.

Millworkers have predicted that Katahdin region schools, town government and local businesses will be devastated if the mill closes and forces a mass exodus to other parts of Maine. Most, they said, are still recovering from the mills’ first closure, which helped slash the town’s population from close to 10,000 residents at its peak to about 5,300 in 2002. Both mills reopened in 2003.

Transition teams recently helped cushion the shock of layoffs in Augusta, Madawaska, Pittsfield and Waterville, Fisher said.

Gov. John Baldacci continued Wednesday to work with Katahdin Paper Co. officials, Maine Department of Labor and Economic and Community Development officials, and officials from Brookfield Asset Management, the mill’s ultimate owner, state officials said.

Baldacci has expressed some confidence that the mill’s energy problems can be solved, possibly with an additional investment in the mill. He has hinted that state officials envision finding an energy producer to invest in the mill to keep it running and to take advantage of its access to water, state forests and the New England power grid.

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