council cold to carnarvon highrise
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empty seats for political theatre
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festival grant funding reviewed
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wednesday
july 17 2013 www.newwestnewsleader.com
didn’t get enough of classic cars at the show&shine? there will be more, along with lots of community entertainment, at the edmonds city fair on sunday. See Page A14
IIO sends Starlight shooting report to Crown Does not make recommendation on charges
CONTRIBuTED PHOTO
there were cars of all kinds of vintage, style, colour and, apparently, weight, on display at sunday’s show & shine on columbia street. the bright sunshine and warm temperatures brought out a record crowd and made the hundreds of vehicles gleam. for more photos see page 3.
RockTenn closes New West plant Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
The RockTenn corrugated box plant in Queensborough has been closed leaving more than 100 employees out of work. Members of the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada (PPWC) Local 16 were on strike when company officials announced on June 30, in the middle of a summer long weekend, the permanent closure of the plant it had bought in 2011 from Smurfit-Stone. The PPWC had been on strike
since May 1. “We took on a legal strike to get better working conditions within the box plant itself, and certainly we weren’t expecting RockTenn to shut the facility. It caught everybody off guard,” said Frank Robertson, PPWC national vice-president and the chair of its wage practice committee. “They never said it was worth keeping open. They’re closing it in order to further shareholder profit, whatever that means.” Robertson would not as far as to say RockTenn, which is based in
Norcross, Ga., and has plants all across North America, bargained in bad faith. “They bargained hard. Bad faith is a bit of an uphill battle to prove in the long run, but they certainly came to the table and hard bargained,” said Robertson. Many of the employees have been with the company 30 to 40 years and are now scrambling for jobs. “That goes without saying,” said Robertson when asked if they’ve been hit hard. “That’s part of the social costs associated with a plant closing. It hurts those workers who
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are being retirement age and their current age, they get hit the most.” The plant is next to the Starlight Casino. It was formerly known as Smurfit-MBI. “When a company closes we do take a hit, but we’re actively promoting New Westminster as a place of business and we’ll continue to entice business to New Westminster to attract jobs and contribute to the local economy,” said Blair Fryer, city communications and economic development manager.
Ward Ward
A report from the Independent Investigations Office (IIO) on a standoff outside the Starlight Casino last November involving New Westminster police that resulted in the death of a Richmond man has been sent to Crown counsel. Although IIO reports are forwarded to the Crown when chief civilian director Richard Rosenthal considers that an officer may have committed an offence, he does not make a recommendation on whether charges should be approved or what charges should be considered, said an IIO press release. The NWPD was called to the casino in the early morning hours of Nov. 8, 2012 after a report of shots being fired and a man in the parking lot who appeared to have a gun. Police surrounded the area and the nearby highway and Queensborough Bridge were closed to traffic.
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