400 More Forestry Jobs Lost In Ft Nelson

Friday, January 18, 2008 09:09 AM

Ft . Nelson - Canfor will close two more saw mills in the province both in Ft Nelson throwing another 400 employees out of work.

Canfor has announced that the two mills will be closed indefinitely due to the poor market conditions. The supply of logs is expected to run out in April. Whst is different in the Fort Nelson case, is that one plant is OSB, the other plywood, so no longer is it just the mills that churn out 2x4's that are being hit.

A further 188 employees at the Canfor Operations in Chetwynd will see their jobs disappear this month as the log inventory runs out . That closing is expected in the next two weeks.

Upwards of 3,000 workers have now seen their jobs disappear in the forest industry in the past few months.

Many companies do not even issue a press release saying their companies are shutting down operations.

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Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 09:09 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Eagleone on January 18 2008 9:35 AM

If historical trends hold true then can we expect to see a 40% increase in the Fort Nelson housing market?

I guess they have oil and gas up in those parts. Sure would be nice if the BC government was proactive on infrastructure investments and didn't sell BC Rail, because right about now it sure would be nice for those folks if they could switch over to building an Alaska rail-pipeline extension through the north Rockies securing their future as a transportation and oil and gas sector regional hub. Also why not put some provincial money into developing the North Rockies tourism potential, which IMO far exceeds the Banff-Jasper parks in its unique beauty.

Posted by: caranmacil on January 18 2008 10:09 AM

An alaka rail link is an interesting idea but it would have to start from Ft st John. The existing BC rail line to NElson is so bad as to be unusable. It takes upwards of 8 hours to travel from Ft st John to Ft Nelson!

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on January 18 2008 10:16 AM

The Alaska rail link should start form Dease Lake. We all ready have spent a ton of that endless supply of Eaglone's government money getting the rail bed that far. Lets throw some more money at it, call it an "emergency".

Posted by: vulcan on January 18 2008 10:17 AM

With all these mill being closed indefinetly, does anyone no how long they have to be closed before severance pay is issued to the employees.

Posted by: realitysetsin on January 18 2008 10:42 AM

Cost of logs about $45 / M3. That's about $165 per thousand board feet.

Lumber is trading at about $185-190 today.

That means, best case, $25 per thousand to convert logs into lumber.

A top quartile mill is somewhere around $90-$100 per thousand to convert.

Best case that's $65 per thousand loss. Mills around here are doing about 20 million board feet a month.

That's $1.3 million a month loss for a top quartile mill.

MORE TO COME.

Posted by: Runner46 on January 18 2008 12:18 PM

so where is the money for these mills going when the lumber is $250/thou

Posted by: herbster on January 18 2008 1:10 PM

How is Harper escaping blame here? That 15% export tax is gutting the margins in the industry and is a mill killer at this point. Add to that he is playing political games with a retraining proposal. He's a real hero for getting the softwood deal done. Not.

Posted by: owl on January 18 2008 1:26 PM

A good question Runner 46 ......

How much money is being paid out in dividends to shareholders when the going is good as opposed to investing it for downturns or re-tooling to meet new marketing opportunities?

I noticed Harper made the announcement to help companies at this time in New Brunswick not BC. We have to remember we are not in this alone.

MPB or not, this would have happened anyway. We may be in for a long term re-adjustement which will actually dampen the downturn due to the MPB to where the effect of that will be kept more in the realm of ecological impact rather than economic impact.

Interesting how things change.

And we are trying to plan for sustainability. Like trying to thread a rope through the eye of a needle.

;-)

Posted by: mythoughts on January 18 2008 1:26 PM

The IWA contract says they are not entitled to severance. It's not a permanent plant closure. They are on an indefinite curtailment. The contract specifically states is has to be a permanent shutdown. I believe, after 2 years, if the mill is still not running, then the union says pay up. Correct me if I'm wrong about that part though.

Posted by: realitysetsin on January 18 2008 1:51 PM

Runner46 - in their owners pockets.

Shouldn't it?
They assume the risk. I don't have a problem with them making money, it just tempers their wining when they lose.

Mythoughts: Tolko did that in Kelowna. So I would assume contract up there is the same, which would make you right.

I *think* if a plant shuts for a year, the union is dissolved at that site.

Posted by: mackbc on January 18 2008 2:25 PM

No the union is not dissolved after one year the union is there as long as members have seniority retention witch is up to two years ,and the position of the steelworkers is that severance will be paid when your seniority runs out .I believe If you have less then two years seniority you get six months ,two years or more you get one year of seniority retention and then you receive one month more for every year of seniority up to a total of two years of seniority retention.

Posted by: gitterdun on January 19 2008 4:41 PM

Remember, this is 400 mill workers in Ft Nelson......now add up the loggers, truckers, mechanics, fuel company employees, tire company employees............then do the same for Chetwynd.......

Posted by: vulcan on January 20 2008 7:29 PM

You can add Mackenzie to that list to, everyone in each of these communities, is being effected.