This will really hurt the DCT Chambers drivers... a lot of whom moved north to stay working when Chambers got the contract from Lomak last year... Chambers doesn't have anything else they can absorb the loss with.

My thoughts at the time was that Quesnel was at risk given that Canfor outsourced the chip contract to an outside company they had no other ties to. Lomak didn't like it at the time, but I bet they figure they came out ok with this new development considering they picked up good contracts to replace Quesnel when they lost the contract to Chambers.

Its a bit of an odd ball situation anyways with Canfor shipping all those wood chips to PG, when there is a West Fraser pulp mill right next door in Quesnel... my thinking is the Eurocan shut down will mean Canfor will be taking the rail chips from Houston that went to Eurocan and shipping them to PG Pulp thereby taking the truck dumper out of action at PG for use with the new rail shipments, and the logistics of that need to be sorted out because they will have no ability to process the Quesnel chips with the line ups at the chip dumpers that will be created from all the chips out west heading this way in a few weeks.

I would not be surprised at all if we see those Chambers trucks heading west as well now like they were at Christmas, and I'll bet if West Fraser doesn't start taking more chips from the west, then they will at some point work a new deal with Canfor to restart the Quesnel mill and source those chips next door for the pulp mill... maybe even see a sale of the Quesnel mill to West Farser would make a lot of sense as well at this point depending on what West Fraser contracts were like for Eurocan suppliers I guess?

The big knock on effects of the Eurocan shut down are only now going to start being felt by the rest of the north and this is only the begining IMO.

I bet we will see negotiations for roll back of 20% wages before startup. bullies at there best.

Yeah... Right....Bullies, cause pot head high school drop-outs on the clean-up crews need $20+/hr to sweep the floor on the weekend.

USW should take the 20% roll back for all their members and sign a new contract. Having their members back at work for 20% less is a lot better than having them sitting at home collecting UI and being used as pawns.

Now if the employers could just get some proper language in the contract to be able to fire the dog-humpers without giving them endless chances productivity could improve as well.

Amen, PHOW!

How much would you need to sweep the floor on the weekend, Maverick, if that were what you were depending on to have a home and put grub on the table?

Someone has to do that kind of work, and even though it might seem menial labour beneath the dignity of many to perform, those jobs are just as vital to the overall success of that mill as the ones everyone else has, right up to the CEO himself.

People say "pay them what they're worth", but what do you equate that to? The only thing you CAN equate it to is the "cost of living". And an ever increasing amount of the actual "costs" that go to make up that "cost of living" are NOT current 'labour' costs, DISTRIBUTED to anyone as incomes in the present, but are rather 'capital' costs that are ALLOCATED expenses that go into prices, and incomes for no one.

"Someone has to do that kind of work, and even though it might seem menial labour beneath the dignity of many to perform, those jobs are just as vital to the overall success of that mill as the ones everyone else has, right up to the CEO himself."

Yes but the difference is 99% of the population can do the cleanup job and there are people everywhere that would do it for less. Cost of living has nothing to do with it. You are talking about Communism. Does unpaid labor in Vancouver get paid twice as much as unskilled labor in PG because the cost of living is twice as much? NO! Infact sometimes the opposite is true. Your argument is weak! Look up meritocracy. Only by paying people what they deserve to people strive to improve themselves. When everyone gets the same you get a bunch of lazy union bums with zero motivation.

Anyone who would refuse a job due to dignity does not NEED the job.
Of course, in Canada, you can have your dignity and refuse to flip burgers or do week end manual labour clean up because we have the social safety nets; EI and Welfare
In my mind, pride and dignity take a back seat if you have a family to feed, a mortgage payment and all the other bills for necessaries, and you should have to take any work that is available.
Work hard!
metalman.

The other variable that socredible isn't factoring in is that one's cost of living (to a great extent) is determined by their own choices. One family making 80K may drive two brand new vehicles and live in a 350K home, while another family making 80K may drive one older car and live in a 250K home. Who's baseline cost of living do you use to determine if the wages are reasonable? The family that lives within their means or the one who doesn't?

roll them back 20%-25% and if there is big profits made give them a bonus at end of each year. Better yet go on peace work gat payed for what you do...Truckers are on peace work and do ok driving...Turf the unions i say...

"Turf the unions i say..."

"Truckers are on peace(piece) work gat(get) payed for what they do..."

Central Interior log haulers worked for the same rate for over 20 years until 2005 when they walked off the job "union style" in order to get the licencees to the table to negotiate better rates.

getajob....get a grip!

listening to all of these posts you can see why big business always gets there way.The unions this the workers that.Since when is 20 dollars an hour such a huge wage?It is a fair wage and the mills gave it to their employees and now they are taking it away.Wait until it happens to you.

lost it all
Please excuse the lil typos i was up all night working and made a spelling mistake...but at least i still have it all! And the unions never handed it to me ....the remark about drivers did not mean owners! only the drivers (Piece work is trip rates),,,,i know most owners make very little.
I have worked both union and non and i did better non union. I still say Turf em....

Again if one is not happy with the wage one gets....one can make a choice.. I never kept a job i never liked.

If we didn't have unions we would all be working for the man. Usually when people bash unions, it's because they are jealous of union workers and their perks. They see their brother, sister in law, neighbour etc enjoying good wages and benefits and because they are working some crap job it makes them union haters. They don't realize that without unions, their crap job would pay even less. Although they can be bastions of corruption and infighting they are still necessary and provide benefits and decent wages to many people. Without them we would be truly -----
Love them or hate them, we can't do without em.

and Tolko has extended downtime at 2 mills.....Armstrong and Soda Creek (Williams Lake)
315 employees affected

Born in BC:-"Only by paying people what they deserve do people strive to improve themselves. When everyone gets the same you get a bunch of lazy union bums with zero motivation."
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I'm not suggesting that the CEO of Canfor should be paid the same as the guy who sweeps the floor. That would be like (the theory, anyways) of Communism. Which is something I abhor. What I am saying is that there is quite a difference in rolling a
$ 20 an hour job's paycheque back by 25% and rolling the top dog's stipend back by the same percentage.

For the $ 20 an hour guy sweeping the floor, a loss of $ 4 an hour might be the difference between making the mortgage payment or losing his home.

For the CEO, if his salary was $ 1 million a year and it's cut to $ 750 thousand, the change in his standard of living likely won't even be noticeable.

The company needs the floor sweeper as much as it needs the CEO. And if the sweeper isn't doing his job because he's 'lazy', then he should get the axe. Same as a CEO should who isn't doing his. And Unions would be wise to recognize this. And demand it, in both instances.

They're there to protect workers from exploitation and abuse. Not to create a paradise for the slacker. Which, in my humble opinion, having done such a job myself, most sawmill floor sweepers are anything but.

If the man IS doing the job, pay him a wage he can live on. And be cognizant that the modern world forces, and I do mean just that, FORCES, many people into debt in order to live to the standards that 'society' now demands they live at.

There is no 25% reduction in the worker's mortgage and other payments when his wage is rolled back. And certainly no 25% reduction in the price of the necessities of life, let alone such as might be called luxuries.

While such wage reductions may seem entirely justified in an attempt to restore or maintain a necessary rate of corporate profitability in an individual company like Canfor, we really need to look at the broader implications in the WHOLE economy ~ and if we did just that, we'd very quickly see that general wage roll backs, even individual company ones, only exacerbate the problems we face in that overall economy, rather than act as any solution to them.