A4 Announcement

As most of you know by now, Catalyst announced the "temporary" curtailment of #4 P.M. this morning. Though it may not be overly surprising to most of us it still comes as somewhat of a shock. It is expected that 592 will see the loss of another 101 jobs.

Following is a 592 release that should get distributed into the mill soon. (It has been emailed to the Union Hall for printing and distribution since the President is in Vancouver at wage caucus with the other wage delegates - myself included.)

Today Catalyst Paper informed CEP Local 592 that Port Alberni Division’s #4 Paper Machine would be curtailed indefinitely. This results in the loss of a further 185 jobs at the Port Alberni site. The affect on Local 592 will be the loss of 101 jobs, 45 in operations and 56 in maintenance.

The decision by Catalyst to remove 134,000 tonnes of newsprint capacity from the market has had a devastating impact on both Local 592 and the community of Port Alberni.

CEP Local 592 will be meeting with the company to address the specific details and impacts of this announcement.

Though none of this is good news, I would like to urge you to maintain solidarity. Though healthy discussion is good, some of the comments have been getting a little bit out of hand. We all have different opinions, but let's remember that it is the company making these decisions and, though they would like to point a finger of blame at us, we have very little input into these decisions they make. I couldn't help but think this morning that we get blamed for not reaching a concessionary agreement, but their side of the table continue to operate at a high level in the company, even though, in my opinion, the failure of the talks can be largely attributed to them.

In solidarity,

Tim