Paper mill will close for a week
Tuesday, July 29, 2003 8:09 AM PDT
By Pat Forgey
Printable version
E-mail this articleWeyerhaeuser Co. announced Monday that it would close its Longview Fine Paper mill for a week, just days after the company's chief executive officer said the company was producing too much paper and would need to take downtime at some mills.
Weyerhaeuser spokeswoman Kate Tate said 110 hourly employees at Fine Paper would be laid off for a week beginning next Monday.
"In order to balance production with customer orders, they've temporarily curtailed Fine Paper August 4-11," she said. "All those Fine Paper employees will be on layoff effective 6 p.m. August 4th."
Hourly employees will be eligible for unemployment. Salaried employees will be reassigned to other duties within the plant, she said.
The Fine Paper mill, formerly called "R&W Fine Paper," produces high quality papers for brochures and similar jobs.
CEO Steve Rogel said Friday that the company's Fine Paper division had been struggling with low prices caused by too much paper on the market, something he attributed to reduced commercial printing due to the weaker economy.
He warned there'd be future temporary and permanent layoffs because of that. In June Weyerhaeuser permanently closed a fine paper machine in Rothschild, Wis., eliminating 75 jobs.
Weyerhaeuser's Fine Paper mill in Longview produces 90,000 tons of paper a year. The Wisconsin machine produced 30,000 tons a year.
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