Newfoundland workers reject Abitibi offer: union

Workers at a financially troubled newsprint mill in central Newfoundland have overwhelmingly rejected a cost-cutting company plan, union officials said Friday night.

AbitibiBowater had insisted that the unionized workforce at its Grand Falls-Windsor mill accept what it called its final offer by Friday.

The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union said 88 per cent of workers voted to turn down the latest company offer, even though the company warned that a rejection would mean the mill would not be competitive in the marketplace.

George MacDonald, president of one of the CEP locals that voted on Montreal-based AbitibiBowater's latest offer this week, said workers felt heavily pressured.

"We had a gun put to our head," said MacDonald, one of about a dozen union officials who unveiled the voting results late Friday.

"This wasn't a negotiation — this was a 'do it, or we'll let you know what we're going to do.' "

Jean-Philippe Côté, AbitibiBowater's director of public affairs and government relations, told CBC News the company had been hoping for a different result.

"Of course we're surprised. Of course we're disappointed," Côté said.

Similar message

Asked what the decision means to the mill's future, Côté said: "We have to review our options ... At this point, the daily operations will continue."

CEP officials expressed a similar message on Friday night: Its members will be returning to the shop floor as per normal.

"I can't speak for the workers but I can speak for myself — there's a sense of relief that we finally made a decision after months of torturous dialogue with the company," said Gary Healey, a national representative with the CEP.

Healey said the union "would like to go back to the table to get a realistic solution to the problems."

The company had set Friday as a deadline two weeks ago, although CEP officials have played down the date, calling it arbitrary.

The mill, which began operations almost a century ago, and its forest operations have a full-time workforce of about 450, but an overall workforce — including seasonal and part-time employees — that reaches close to 1,100.

AbitibiBowater infuriated workers this summer when it unveiled a restructuring plan that would have entailed more than 170 job cuts as well contracting some services, included forest-based positions. That first proposal was rejected by 99 per cent of participating union members.

Early retirements sought

Abitibi later softened its position, and this week presented an offer — which it described as final — that emphasized how early retirements could dramatically drop the number of layoffs. 

MacDonald, though, said he voted against the deal because he thought little of what AbitibiBowater has been proposing to its workforce.

"If you accept this here, there'll [still] be more people laid off than staying, and you'll be working under Third World countries' [conditions], the way people work over there," MacDonald said before the vote was announced.

However, in correspondence mailed to members this week, the company was blunt about what was at stake.

"We must keep in mind that our mill has the highest labour costs of any mill in North America," said a Nov. 4 letter that the company sent to workers.

AbitibiBowater announced Thursday that it posted a loss of $302 million US in its third quarter, and intends to cut production to cope with a continuing slump in demand for newsprint.