Mill unions

Local mill union members tentatively are slated to vote Jan. 9 on an agreement that will see them offer labour stability to the mill in order to get a bio-mass boiler up and running here.
While he couldn’t reveal any details of the agreement, Brian Short, Grand Lodge representative for the International Association of Machinists-Maintoba and Northwestern Ontario, said Thursday it is the result of months of talks with Abitibi-Consolidated.
“We were approached a few months ago by Abitibi with respect to seeing if we could secure some kind of an agreement to give the employer some long-term labour stability in exchange for a guarantee that they would build and operate a new bio-mass boiler in Fort Frances for the mill,” said Short, who represented IAM membership in talks with the company.
“We had discussion with the company surrounding that. We’ve simply reached a tentative agreement on something,” he added.
“I can’t get into any specific details,” Short stressed. “We haven’t actually even given a copy of the tentative agreement that we’ve reached with the company to our members yet.
“That won’t happen until the first week in January, so I don’t want to get into any details with respect to that.”
Members of Communications Energy and Paperworkers Local 306 and 92, the International Association of Machinists Local 771, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1744 are scheduled to vote on the agreement on Jan. 9.
Local mill manager John Harrison declined to comment on the tentative agreement when contacted Thursday morning.
As previously reported, the proposed bio-mass generator (also referred to as a “hog fuel” boiler) uses renewable cost-effective fuel (wood waste) to generate steam and electricity to the mill, resulting in significant cost-savings and consequently boosting the long-term viability of the mill.
The bio-mass generator would not replace the current co-gen plant, but supplement its power generation.