There Is A Lost Confidence In The Region Says Local Union Boss

By 250 News

Prince George B.C. - "There is lost confidence in the region" that’s the way Frank Everitt, President of Local 1-424 of the United Steel Workers  describes the atmosphere after Canfor announced today a further 300 lay offs at their mills in the region.

"It is creating a lot of turmoil" Everitt says, "We stand to lose a lot of workers in the forest industry, and when the upswing takes place again it will be very hard to find people with the knowledge about the industry. "

Everitt isn’t certain if this is the last of the cuts "I don’t know whether we have reached the goal in reducing the work force, I hope we have.  We have seen mills going to a four day work week and that has helped level out the playing field. "

According to Everitt there are  differing opinions on how long this downturn will last "The predictions range from an upswing in the market in late 2008, which would mean we are heading into a two year problem and others are saying this down turn will last only 6 to 9 months. Either way it is hard on the workers of the forest industry."

Meantime a Forestry analyst says he doesn’t know if we have reached the total cuts that are going to be made in this market." Nine hour shifts have been reduced to eight hours, some companies are moving to a four day week and yet others like Stewart Lake are shutting down for good. " 

He says there are two schools of thought, "You keep three shifts going and produce product cheaper by doing that or you go to a two shift  program in which case your cost of production increases but you don’t lose so much money at the selling end."

Our expert says some companies don’’t seem to be making their decisions based purely on economics "I happen to think that in many cases it is the ego of the owners and operators wanting to make a statement that they will be the last guy standing. "

As for the break even point for companies today, our  analyst says that’s difficult to  pin down "The old break even in this industry no longer applies , it’s a matter of different mills having a different price for break even depending on how they apply it. "

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