The Aspen Planers mill in Merritt. (Photo via Google Maps)
The union that represents workers at the Aspen Planers sawmill in Merritt says they’re not sure when – or if – the mill will resume operations.
Workers have been off the job since April 25, and Jordan Lawrence, the Financial Secretary for the United Steelworkers Local 1-417, says he’s not sure what the reason for the shutdown is.
“Anything I’ve heard is kind of what I’ve seen in the press. [Things like] market conditions, log costs, not being able to get permits for logs,” Lawrence said on the NL Noon Report.
“The market seems okay to me but I don’t know or pretend to know everything that goes into their cost and so, I kind of have to take it at face value. If they’re saying they’re not making money, there is nothing I can do to prove otherwise.”
Radio NL has reached out to the company who have blamed poor market conditions for the ongoing seven-week shutdown in Merritt.
“Simply put, the whole forest industry in B.C., it’s not an exaggeration, it’s collapsing and it’s just in a terrible state,” AP Group Executive Vice President Bruce Rose is quoted as saying in the Merritt Herald. “You can see the negative consequences are all over the place in the province, just over the last couple years, forestry jobs have been lost by the thousands.”
Rose also said that prior to this closure, Aspen Planers ran on a “only a single shift daily basis for much of 2023 and 2024.”
“The frustrating part for us and for everybody else [in the forest industry], there doesn’t seem to be any sense of urgency or any support from the B.C. government to address any of these challenges, there’s been no concrete steps taken,” Rose added.
“[Forestry] just does not appear to be an industry that the provincial government is interested in supporting or having a strong forest industry. You can see it in the endless facilities closing people, postponing investments that they were going to do earlier.”
Lawrence says his union represents 70 of the roughly 100 workers who have been impacted by the seven-week long curtailment. He notes the majority of them are unsure what their future holds.
“Haven’t heard about anything about [curtailment] being permanent. Haven’t heard if there is a time that they’re going back,” Lawrence said.
“Last I had talked to management, there was a hope that maybe they were going to be back to work next week. My guess is with the news that I saw, they will not be back next week, although I have put a call to management just to give me an update.”
Lawrence notes its been a tough few years because of recurring curtailments. While some of them have found other jobs, a number of others have had to rely on Employment Insurance to make ends meet.
“Over the last two to three years, its been close to 50 per cent of the time they aren’t working,” he said.
“I know there are a number of employees who have gone to Savona to work at SSP there, at the plywood plant which is also owned by Aspen and so they put it to people that if they are laid off from the mills in Aspen, then they can go to Savona and a few people take them up on that each time.”
