Resolute Forest Products Announces Layoffs Amid Softwood Lumber Battle

Hundreds of Quebec forestry workers are experiencing the first sour tastes from the softwood lumber battle with the United States as they prepare for the start of layoffs. Starting Monday, Resolute Forest Products is cutting shifts at seven sawmills and delaying the start of forest operations that will affect 1,282 workers.

Pierrot Fortin, who experienced such heartache during the last impasse in the early 2000s, is again preparing for lost income and uncertainty. “Work stoppages like this are never easy,” said the truck driver who hauls wood from forests in the Lac-Saint-Jean region. “It has an impact on families and everyone is worried.” But the 48-year-old says he’s luckier than some — his house is almost paid and his two children are no longer babies. Fortin feels for young families and older workers who have few employment alternatives in one-industry towns.

The big worry is that temporary curtailments will be extended as companies feel growing pressure from retroactive duties and the prospect of additional preliminary charges to be announced next month.

During the last softwood lumber dispute, Canada shed 20,000 forestry jobs between 2000 and 2006, and about 400 sawmills closed entirely between 2004 and 2009. Unifor, which represents 24,000 forestry workers at 134 companies, fears duties this time will hurt 25,000 Canadian jobs.

La Tuque mayor Normand Beaudoin says any downtime longer than two weeks currently planned for about 100 mill employees would be difficult for families in the small town about 200 kilometers south of the Lac-Saint-Jean region. “In the short-term I don’t have a lot of worries, but if it goes on for one or two years it will do a lot of harm,” Beaudoin said.

From rdnewsNOW.com.

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