Fine Paper closing for good
Thursday, November 13, 2003 8:06 AM PST
By Pat Forgey
Printable version
E-mail this articleWeyerhaeuser Co. announced the permanent closure of its Longview Fine Paper machine Wednesday, hitting the reeling Cowlitz County economy with the loss of 119 more jobs.
"Everybody's just in shock," said George Wilson, president of the Association of Pulp and Paper Workers Local 680, which represents the 102 hourly employees who will lose their job at the Fine Paper mill, formerly known as R-W Paper Co. Another 17 salaried workers also will lose their jobs.
The remaining fine paper machine will shut down Nov. 23, though employees will continue to work for some time afterwards.
Though many members of the community knew the mill was at risk of closure, there was still shock among workers, retirees and community leaders.
"To have another hit like this is tough," said Ted Sprague, president of the Cowlitz Economic Development Council. "I feel awful for those families. That's terrible."
Fine Paper may have fallen victim to the age of its only remaining paper machine, as well as the 2001 takeover of Willamette Industries, which brought new, more efficient paper machines into the Weyerhaeuser system.
During the afternoon the company shut down the No. 1 Fine Paper Machine and called employees together to tell them the news. It simultaneously issued a press release after the stock market closed in New York. The night shift was told early in the evening.
The machine has been scheduled to close temporarily from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Instead, it will run until Nov. 23, when it will be shut down and decommissioned.
Job losses announced are the latest blow to Cowlitz County's manufacturing economy, which had lost 1,790 manufacturing jobs from August 2001 to September this year.
Wilson said employees knew the fine paper business was in a bad way, with other area mills struggling as well. Boise Cascade's fine paper mill in St. Helens, Ore. is losing money, and Georgia-Pacific just announced the closure of a fine paper machine at its Camas mill Nov. 5, and the elimination of 60 jobs. In February, 2001 Weyerhaeuser shut down Fine Paper Machine No. 2 in Longview, costing 187 jobs.
To try to keep Weyerhaeuser from closing the No. 1 Fine Paper machine, those running it said they worked hard to make it run as efficiently as possible. Last year they convinced Weyerhaeuser to spend several million dollars to install a dandy roll, a sophisticated piece of equipment designed to improve paper quality.
Weyerhaeuser spokeswoman Jackie Lang said the mill had boosted its quality and reliability, but what it couldn't cope with was the economy. The year's long economic downturn meant less usage of the advertising and business papers it produced.
Both Weyerhaeuser and its competitors in the fine paper business are competing fiercely, and Lang said paper machine No. 1, which with a capacity of 90,000 tons of paper per year, was dwarfed by mills which could produce five times that amount.
"We're operating in a marketplace where our small, 47-year-old machine struggles to compete with highly efficient, modern mills now operating here and abroad," she said.
The closure has nothing to do with the mill's workforce, she said. "It is driven by our need to achieve greater efficiency and competitive advantage," Lang said. The machine was one of the least efficient in a division which company executives said was "struggling," a Wall Street euphemism for losing money.
Wilson said the takeover of Willamette Industries in 2001 meant that some of that competition came internally as well.
"When they incorporated Willamette into this company, they got a lot of high-speed, very modern mills," he said. "It's hard for us to compete with those," he said.
In a statement announcing the closure, Weyerhaeuser Vice President Michael A. Jackson, who heads Fine Paper operations, blamed the closure on the age of the machine. He is based in Federal Way.
"The closure of the machine was a difficult decision, made necessary by the age of the machine," he said.
Knowing the reasons for the closure doesn't make it any easier to take, Wilson said.
"I think its just going to be a big impact on the community, and on a lot of people's lives," he said.
Lang said the company will offer affected employees severance pay and continuation of health care benefits, as well as job-transition service and counseling, in accordance with company policy and union agreements. Wilson said the paperworkers' union contract include provisions related to mill shutdowns, and union leaders and company officials will begin negotiating those next week.
Sprague said a rapid response team made up of representatives from the Employment Security Department, Southwest Washington Workforce Development Council and others would beginning as soon as today working with the company and employees on options.
That could include some early retirements and transfers to other Weyerhaeuser operations, but that's not likely to help that many employees.
"We've got one guy here, he's 53 and has been her 30 years. It's pretty hard to go out and find another job at 53," Wilson said.
No. 1 machine will be shut down on midnight Nov. 23, but employees will remain on for some time after that to finish converting and shipping operations. The machine will be dismantled, not sold, and the site reclaimed for other uses, Lang said.
Other Weyerhaeuser operations have also downsized, and few other openings are likely to be available, acknowledged Wilson.
"We all knew it was coming, but we didn't know when," said Charles Larson of Longview, who retired from Fine Paper last year. He began work there when it was R-W Paper Co., a Weyerhaeuser venture with Wisconsin's Rhinelander Paper Co.
He said mill jobs were a blessing for people who'd been working at service stations or in fast food, and helped keep the community strong for decades.
"It was a pretty comforting feeling to know you have insurance and you can depend on having that check coming for your family every other week," he said. "I feel really sorry for the young people."
Past Month's Most Commented Stories