Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Dear Brothers and Sisters,                                                                                                             June 23, 2020

Just a quick update on some of the business that your local has been doing since the May 19th update.

Job well done at flattening the curve at our site, everyone is still doing their best to manage the risks of Covid-19. Please continue to limit your time in control rooms, continue hand washing, and keep practicing physical distancing.

There will be several new hires over the next few weeks, please watch out for them and make sure they are safe.

Your executive held a meeting on June 14th and there were no motions passed, other than not to participate in the Canada Day parade this year.

The normal area reports of note are below:

Safety:

 Exposure at the rail ramp, where Four of our Brothers were exposed to an unknown substance, once the formal investigation is complete, we should have a better handle on what happened here.

 Core training is continuing with Brother Martin at the community center. Please make every effort to participate as each class is limited in numbers, and it is very important that we keep up to date on our training.

Chipline:

 The Tugboat is in drydock getting much-needed repairs

 Deckhand training is going ahead

Trades:

 There is concern around “inspection” stickers vs recertification of cranes and beams, etc. your area rep Brother Shields is working on this.

Yard/Shipping:

 The Company has hired some Shipping Casuals, the Shipping Department is looking forward to the help.

Clerical:

 There is currently a review of all the desks to ensure we are doing the work that is assigned to those desks.

The Manulife grievance is proceeding to arbitration; hopefully we can get a fast decision so we can get the proper booklets out to the retirees and membership.

Last week there was a conference call with Paper Excellence Corporate VP Stew Gibson, your wage delegates, and 4 other mills to review some of the challenges we are facing as a Company after the malware attack, and Covid-19.

While the market conditions have not been great for Pulp and Paper, there have been several curtailments by P.E. and most other Companies, we have been able to continue running.

There are several challenges because of the worldwide decline in demand for our products as well as Fibre, and Power costs that the Company is working through.

Unifor has and will continue to lobby Governments on Forest/Energy policy in order to best support our industry.

I am currently on an advisory group of Presidents representing mills from the South Coast, Interior, and the North. We will be talking directly to Government on wide variety issues, such as Tenure, Stumpage, Power deals, and Raw log exports that are critical to the Forest industry and will have more to report soon.

Your wage delegates met on June 22nd to review the main wage and local surveys. Expect to see these surveys for the upcoming bargain in your mailbox soon, please take some time to fill them out and put them in the self-addressed envelope as soon as possible.

In Solidarity

Don Rheaume

Unifor Local 1119 President

Don Rheaume