608                 TABLE TALK                712

2009  Issue #9                                                                                                                                                              January

Countdown to Contract – ### days

What is the ‘Maintenance Adjustment?

   A Maintenance adjustment is a small rate applied to the mechanical trades in lieu of  the Job Analysis Plan. Job analysis is available to all other jobs to establish wage increases by appraising increasing skill levels, working conditions & responsibility.

The Mill is constantly under-going equipment upgrades with newer & technologically more complex installations that Maintenance is required to install as well as to maintain. The Maintenance Adjustment is an effort to compensate for this constant increase in responsibilities.

No Reward for the Workforce?

   3% wage reduction. No wage increases for two years, Elimination of the 7^th week of vacation. 8 hours vacation pay lost. Loss of a holiday (day after Labor day).

These are some of the concessions hourly workers gave back to help this Company survive hard times in the early part of this decade.

“Potlatch executives anticipate an additional $5 million reduction in costs for the year from the labor contract it reached for about 1,200 hourly pulp and paperboard and consumer products employees in Lewiston.   The contract includes a 3 percent pay cut and doesn’t give a raise until September 2004.”                            http://www.lmtribune.com/archived-story/News/269863/

  So what did Management do? They promptly gave out bonuses after the company's return to profitability to salaried executives in 2004.

“First profit in four years means bonuses of cash, stock options for top 5.

The awards ranged from $478,600 for L. Pendleton Siegel, Potlatch's chief executive officer and chairman of the board in Spokane, to $71,600 for Craig H. Nelson, vice president of the Consumer Products Division in Lewiston.

The executives get half the bonus in cash and half in stock. With Siegel's bonus, his compensation package reached $1.07 million, not counting stock options and Potlatch's contributions to his retirement plan.”

http://www.lmtribune.com/archived-story/Business/293507/

  Now that our business is profitable again how can we expect to be treated?

If the last few contracts negotiated by our company are any indication they still expect us to continue the give-backs.

Union members have done everything requested of them such as producing  higher quality products with fewer people without getting the kind of monetary awards going to top executives.

MILL CLOSURES

          In mid-December, Smurfit-Stone announced it would close its 620,000 tons/year linerboard mill in Missoula and its 280,000 tons/year containerboard mill in Ontonagon, Michigan at the end of 2009. The company said both mills were high-cost facilities that do not produce adequate returns over the long term.

          In Missoula, 417 employees will lose their jobs. The annual payroll for wages and benefits for these employees was about $45 million.

          The University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research Director Pat Barkley said, “The total job impact may be as high as 1,500 jobs when all the linkages are taken into account.”

          As an example of how the mill closure will affect the Missoula area, since 1997, the employees and members of the Steelworkers Local have donated $1.4 million to the United Way of Missoula County.

          The mill in Ontonagon closed in November 2008, restarted in May 2009 and then closed, again in September, costing the jobs of 182 members of USW Local 2354.

          The northern Michigan company town has struggled economically the past decade. In 1999, for example, the Ontonagon school district had 4,600 students, K-12; in 2008, the enrollment was down to 500.

          Georgia Pacific announced that 158 members of USW Locals 213 and 327 will lose their jobs effective December 7th as the company shuts down parts of its Day Street tissue mill in Green Bay, Wisconsin. A company spokesman said the lines being shut down had some of the oldest machines in the company.

Gordon’s Corner

Who is Gordon L. Jones? Gordon L. Jones, born November 7, 1949, received a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from the University of Nebraska and a Master of Science degree in business administration from Boston University.

After serving in the U.S. Army, he began his career in the paper towel and tissue business at Procter and Gamble.

Jones started work for Stone Container in 1983. From January, 1991 he was President of Stone Container International and Division Vice President of Containerboard and Kraft Paper Marketing. From June, 1993 to April, 1997, Mr. Jones was Vice President and General Manager of Worldwide Market Pulp Sales and Export Containerboard and Kraft Paper Sales. His salary ranged from $185,669 with a $40,300 bonus in 1995 to $ 269,167 in 1998 while with Stone. (Edgar Online)

To be continued…

The Table Talk will be archived at www.usw-608.com. If you have any ideas for future issues, please feel free to send them to our e-mail address: catoffice@cableone.net If you would like the Table Talk sent to your home computer, email the CAT office with your home email address.