NANAIMO — The Western Forest Products’ sawmill in downtown Nanaimo is scheduled to be closed permanently by the end of the year, the forest company announced Monday.
The company also plans to invest $10 million to modernize its Duke Point sawmill and will add another shift to coincide with the closing of the Nanaimo mill.
“The investments being made at Duke Point and the consolidation of our Nanaimo sawmill operations are expected to reduce costs, improve our flexibility to produce different grades of lumber and increase our recovery factors from log to lumber,” said company president and CEO Don Demens.
The 62 employees now working at the Nanaimo mill will be offered jobs at other WFP mills, including Duke Point once a second shift is added, said WFP spokeswoman Amy Spencer. She couldn’t say Monday how many workers the second shift will need.
She said the workers will also be offered severance in accordance with terms under the collective agreement with the United Steelworkers Local 1-1937, which represents the workers at the downtown mill.
Spencer said the consolidation is intended to increase production at both the company’s Duke Point and Saltair sawmills and reduce costs.
Local 1-1937 president Brian Butler said that from the union’s perspective, the workers never want to see any manufacturing plant in the province close.
But he said that, under the circumstances, he’s as content as he can be with the mill’s closing, as long as his members get what they are entitled to under their contract.
Company and union representatives informed mill workers Monday morning of the plan, and the mill was closed for the rest of the day to allow workers time to absorb the news, Butler said.
Spencer said the property on which WFP’s downtown mill is located is owned by the Nanaimo Port Authority and the company has begun talks with the authority to discuss its plans and the dismantlement of the mill.
WFP’s downtown mill was shut down in 2008 and was closed for almost two years while the company worked to restructure its operations to meet economic challenges and find new markets.
WFP reopened the mill with one production line in the fall of 2010 and hired back approximately 30 workers — since increased to 62 — after successfully finding other markets in Asia and the rest of Canada to keep operations running.
The mill made national headlines in May when forklift operator and union official Michael Lunn and supervisor Fred McEachern were both shot dead on site, while supervisor Earl Kelly and vice-president of manufacturing Tony Sudar were wounded.
Former millworker Kevin Douglas Addison has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.
