Norampac strike is over

By Dan Hilborn
Published Dec. 4, 2004


After more than eight months of walking the picket line, workers at the Norampac paper recycling mill in the Big Bend region of Burnaby are heading back to work after voting 65 per cent in favour of the company's revised final offer this week.

Dave Hart, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) union local 1129, which represents more than 100 employees at the mill, said the deal is a compromise that dropped two of the last three concession demands from the company.

"When a strike has gone on for so long, there has to be a compromise on both sides, and that was done here," Hart said Wednesday morning. "We were told it was time to either shut down or take this deal, and the members decided to come back to work, and I agree with that."

The union won a third-party job evaluation plan and a code of ethics on contracting out, while the company won concessions to the employee's health and welfare benefits, Hart said.

The job action made headlines this summer when two of the striking workers volunteered to be arrested for refusing to allow vehicles to enter the site.

Hart said it is only natural that some hard feelings will persist, but said those animosities should lessen over time.

"Right now the feeling is that we've been through a long struggle, and certainly there is some bitterness on both sides," he said. "We have to agree to come together and make this work now. And that will take a commitment on the part of the company, myself and the local to do that."

Hart said the mill should be up and running at normal capacity within two weeks, capable of producing 125,000 metric tonnes of recycled paper for boxes, bags and gypsum products. The Burnaby paper mill is often considered one of the most environmentally friendly industrials sites in the province and receives some of its electrical power from the steam generated by the neighbouring Montenay-GVRD garbage incinerator.

Hart said all of the striking workers have been offered their old jobs back, and the only people who do not return to work will be those who choose to retire.