Press Release
After re-starting the sawmill in early 2016, Kenora Forest Products ramped up to full production today (Oct. 31) with the addition of a second shift in the planer and sawmill.
“There are now about 110 Unifor members working at the mill,” noted Stephen Boon, Unifor national representative.
“And as part of the 2014 mill re-start negotiations, Unifor and Kenora Forest Products formally committed to ensuring local indigenous members also shared in the economic benefits and good-paying jobs associated with a re-opened sawmill in Kenora,” he added.
“We are very pleased that as a result of that commitment, over 50 percent of the mill’s total workforce is now comprised of local indigenous members, with dozens more employed in related log-harvesting operations,” Boon said.
Kenora Forest Products also will become one of the highest-paying sawmills in eastern Canada.
Top trades’ wages will increase by up to 58.5 percent—to $41.79 an hour—by the final year of the current six-year contract that expires Dec. 31, 2020.
