Prince George, B.C. - About 200 people sat in auditorium 103 at the Prince George Civic Centre today, to hear how they should handle the news of the loss of their jobs.

 

They are the employees of North Central Plywood, who, until last Monday evening, had decent paying jobs. Now they are filing for employment insurance, and looking for options.

 

On stage, a presenter from Interlock, a company which provides employee assistance programs and family social services.   

“You will go through a range of emotions” the presenter told the group, “Grief, anger and confusion are among them. But what you need to remember is that your family is going through these emotions with you.”

 

The words are all too true to some employees says Pulp and Paper Workers Union Local 25 President Jyym Kennedy “Some of the workers laid off are the grandfather, daughter, and granddaughter, three full generations all suffering the same fate. In some other cases, husbands and wives, and there were some parent and child employees, so this really hits a lot of families.”

 

The room is bounded by booths from Prince George Native Friendship Centre Jobs Market, Turner and Associates, T.R.A.D.E.S., Services Canada, and others, all there to offer assistance, counselling, advice and options to the more than 200 North Central Plywood employees who are without work because of last weeks devastating fire.

 

The now unemployed are milling from one booth to another. Cliff Cameron is among them. “I’m not in too bad of shape” says Cameron who had been with NCP for 14 years, “I’m one of the lucky ones, I had started taking some electrician training on my own.” He now learns he might qualify to continue his education with the financial assistance of the Federal Government or the new program recently announced by the Province.

 

Local 25 President Jymm Kennedy says not all are so lucky. “Trades people will have a lot easier time finding another job but you have to understand, the vast majority of people at that plant are production people, and a lot of them, all they know is plywood. Our best possible thing to happen is for them to rebuild the plant.”

 

Kennedy figures the average age of the trades people at the mill was about 50 while the average aged of the production employees was between 40 and 45. There would be very few who would qualify for the Province’s bridging program to carry mill workers 55 and older until they are old enough to retire.