Youth skills Nanaimo Foodshare program helps overcome work barriers. PAGE 6 Meetings aired Council agrees to webcast regular committee sessions. PAGE 17 Building excellence Six Nanaimo projects at annual VIREB awards. PAGE 3
Jr. T-men start year PAGE 28
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VOL. 23, NO. 156
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Union loses arbitration against WFP BY JENN McGARRIGLE THE NEWS BULLETIN
The local forest workers’ union has lost its bid to get severance pay for roughly 40 employees who ran the planer at Western Forest Products’s downtown Nanaimo sawmill. Brian Butler, first vice-president of the United Steelworkers Local 1-1937, said the planer operation at the downtown sawmill shut down in December 2008 and never reopened, even after the sawmill reopened in 2010. The union argued the workers were entitled to severance pay, totalling roughly $1 million, because the union’s new contract stipulates severance must be paid after a “major operating component” of a mill has been shut down for two years. While the sawmill resumed operation before the 24-month time frame expired, the planer mill remained down. Butler said an arbitrator ruled in favour of the company, which argued the planer shutdown happened under the previous collective agreement, when severance pay was only due if the “principal processing and production part of a plant” was shut down for more than two years. “It’s a tough blow,” he said. “We’re not happy with Western Forest Products for treating workers in this fashion.” While some of the laid-off workers managed to get hired on at other divisions, many are still struggling with the income loss, said Butler. A lawyer advised an appeal would be unsuccessful, he added. ◆ See ‘ANOTHER’ ‘ /4
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It’s a tough blow. We’re not happy with Western Forest Products.
CHRIS HAMLYN/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Hayley Farenholtz makes her way to the top of the Romper Room’s seven-metre climbing wall during Healthfest at Beban Park Thursday. The fifth annual multicultural health fair featured free breast cancer screening and blood pressure exams, an electronic fitness centre, glucose screening and information on a variety of health issues.
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