Header: Header: Header:

Third District Supervisor Mark Lovelace expects the county to chip in quickly with job replacement services for the 123 employees who will be laid off in March and April in the phased closing of the Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) sawmill in Manila.

Lovelace cited the Rapid Response program administered by the county’s Employment Training Division and the Workforce Development Board. “Over the years [the board] has helped hundreds of workers from Palco and California Redwood to find rewarding new careers in other industries,” Lovelace said. Workers “don’t want change thrust upon them in this way,” he agreed, “but there is help available.”

Vice chair of the county Board of Supervisors, Lovelace received word Saturday of a WARN announcement under the “The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.” That federal labor law requires companies with more than 100 employees to provide a 60 calendar-day notice of plant closings and mass layoffs.

Mark Pawlicki, the company’s spokesman, said in a telephone interview from SPI’s corporate headquarters in Anderson, about 10 miles south of Redding, that each employee who decides to move elsewhere within the company will receive $2,000 in relocation assistance. The company has job openings at other locations and Arcata’s crew members are being encouraged to consider them.

The Arcata sawmill is slated to shut down on March 25; finishing up the framing lumber that remains is scheduled to end on April 22, Pawlicki said. The facility sits on 70 acres, but no decision has been made on the disposition of either the equipment or the land, he added.

From the Mad River Union: http://madriverunion.com/24254-2/