Tuesday 25 September 2007

Wage Delegate Update

Local 592 Wage Delegates having been meeting with Ron Buchhorn and local Management for the last few days. Friday Sept. 21st was spent dealing with issues that were previously indentified as the challenges and barriers that prevent us from achieving the manufacturing cost on A4 to $575 per ton on directory. It was decided that this goal would only be a short term solution due to the Canadian dollar reaching par. It was mutually agreed that our goal should be based on EBITDA rather than manufacturing cost for a long term solution. It was noted that to convince the Board to invest in our mill and invest in our younger work force we should shoot for at least a $200+ EBTDA and maintain or better that going into the future. Although this will be far more challenging, it does make more sense if we are looking for that long term, viable future as a 2 machine operation. The issue around "Management of Time Off" was discussed at length and many proposals were put on the table. Some of these proposals may seem to be distasteful but it is a fact that time off does present a big barrier to achieving any sort of goal due to the demographics of our membership.

On Monday Sept. 24th, Jess Beaman was invited to give us an overview on the down sizing and restructuring process at Boyer in Tazmania. Jess Beaman relayed to us that the approach he took at Boyer was "ruthless" but the end result was a long term future for a mill that was to be shut down. His talk was very "sobering" but there may be some ideas that we can take away from this to help us to achieve our goal.

Tuesday Sept. 25th we again dealt with the indentified issues and included "time off", flexibilty and planning and scheduling. Again many ideas were tossed around on how we can deal with these issues. There has been no decisions or agreements made on any of these issues. All of these will be put in a package proposal to be decided upon by the membership of Local 592. As there are still many items that we still have to discuss, we are still shooting for early November to have something to bring back to the membership.

Local 592 Wage Delegates
Pete Rayburn
Daryl De Rooy
Phil Guild

8 comments:

  1. Why are these talks dragging on so much. First it was September, then October, now November. We all know what the company wants, just write it up and give it to the members to vote on, and let us get on with our lives. It had been going on far too long and most people are stressed to the max working like this. Then there is next May to deal with.

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  2. If you check back to the report on the July 26th meeting you will see that we did set a time line to complete these discussions and present it to the membership sometime in November. When and if we have something to bring back to you, then you will see why it is not just a simple "write it up and vote on it" scenario. There is nothing that we are doing that is preventing anyone from "getting on with their lives". We have been very carefull not to make any promises that this could be successful. The fact is that A4 is down and we have people on lay-off and there is not much hope to get all of those people back to work as we sit right now. All of the Wage Delegates are living, eating and breathing this stuff and don't have a chance to think about anything other than these discussions. As I stated right from the start, this is our last kick at the can and we had better do it right this time around and you can't do that overnight. It takes time so please be patient or "get on with your lives".

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  3. Aren't these discussions leading into what will be an industry based pattern for next May negotiations. Why bother to the point of voting on something what appears to be something the company wants for the entire industry. Why not just wait till May? It's going to happen then anyway. Why sell the farm without the consent of our union brothers from other mills?

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  4. while quoting the cep local 592 words (

    The group has set a tentative schedule for future talks which will take us into the middle of October. We will be meeting again on Sept. 20th & 21st. Sept. 24th & 25th. Oct. 1st & 2nd. and Oct. 11th & 12th. ) it seems very hard to believe that the last talks which took 4 months on 2 occasions with a much smaller original list of topics and nothing accomplished that something can be done this time with only 4 more days of talks -- please tell us how you expect to accomplish this or whats so different this time ..i find it totally WRONG that we never got to vote or have a say the last time around and all of a sudden this time the membership decides -- whats so different or is it the fact that certain individuals are very close to the layoff line as well or that the whole mill could shut down . I wonder if the executive will be true to their word about not negotiating main wage issues as well and there was main wage issues on the list that was shown..has the executive got permission to negotiate some or all of the items on the list from the national and their interpretation of the items..

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  5. I have posted the previous two commemts and respect the opinions of both but as stated previously we will not reply to comments without a name attached to them especially when those commenters are making unfounded accusations.

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  6. i can t believe people ar so nieve to think that there will be a mill running at all without a deal or number 4 starting .. wait till may and we will all be walking the streets. if we keep fighting it will just justify them shutting the whole place down ..

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  7. just a question or an idea but has anyone ever asked the company for a signing bonus to accept the offer ??

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  8. There has been no offer to consider a signing bonus. If there is, it will be consideration of our older work force by way of enhanced packages in order to provide employment for our younger guys.

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