The President of the United Steelworkers Local 1-417 says he wants a meeting with government to discuss the future of the soon to be laid off workers at the Vavenby sawmill.

Marty Gibbons is pushing for a meeting with Forests Minister Doug Donaldson, but he also wants to get Premier John Horgan at the table.

Gibbons says they have a phone meeting with Deputy Minister John Allan this Friday, adding there should be a social contract tying the log supply to jobs in the area.

“We just want to know what they are doing for this community, what they are going to do for these workers?” he told Radio NL. “Canfor made $60 million selling that timber. We’re not saying we want a cut of the sale, what we are saying is that these are publicly owned trees and its disturbing when corporations can list them as an asset on their balance sheet.”

Another meeting is scheduled for today with the Rural Response Team, which Gibbons says will be to talk about services and supports that could be available to the workers.

“One of the things that we are going to be asking the provincial government and the Federal government is we are basically being eliminated from EI due to severance payments, and at the same time, we are going to be seeking some extension of EI,” Gibbons added.

“That’s something that the federal government did in 2009. They actually made it easier for forest workers to get onto EI and those are some of the changes we are going to be looking for again.”

He also said that the affected communities will need long term supports from the provincial and federal government.

“That’s a very tough discussion to have as everyone has some ideas, but a lot of them seem to be bandaids than long term fixes for the community,” said Gibbons.

“The forestry dollars from this community and the taxes that are paid from these wages have been used by this government for a lot of years, and you know, we need to see some of that returned back into the communities that paid them.”