There was no bargaining to begin with. Tembec wants the USW menbership to just accept the proposed cuts with a tight time limit that does not give ample time to go over the proposed cuts in their document.
One of the main issues in the Tembec document is a change in the pension. This change in the pension alone would need to be researched and time would be needed to do this. The proposed document of cuts was not even given a chance to be voted on by the USW membership, Tembec just locked the doors.

hawaii....feeling for the brothers and sisters at this mill. Any idea what vintage this mill is? If it is an older smaller one, it 'ain't got a chance in hell even if the employees work for free....imho

Words cannot describe what the union brothers and sisters are going through. If economic times are so tough, then Tembec should show some good faith and slash management's salaries. This has apparently not happened, and the company (Tembec) refuses to negotiate. This has tyrany written all over it. If I wanted to live like this I would move to China. The sooner we can get rid of Tembec, the better. The years of loyalty to this mill by the employees should count for something. I don't know how corporate people in Tembec sleep at night. For the record, this transmission has been sent on my off time.
Gerald Kraynyk,
Tembec Pine Falls employee

jerryk, I am with you to the bitter end.

NS

I don't get it. Here's a company that is over 500 million in debt they need to find ways to cut cost. So they come to their union employees to ask them to take very large concessions. Do they themselves take any kind of reduced salaries nooo, do they themselves stop taking their bonus nooo, do they set any kind of example, no not positve ones.
If you want to save money and become productive than start at the top and be serious about it and stop trying to justify your greed. Why does anyone have to make more than 500 hundred thousand a year??? If you corporates started to be good positive examples and treated your employees with respect than you wouldn't have any fight.
Isn't one of Tembec's slogans "A Community of People Working Together bla bla bla" it's just been b.s. up to this point. If all corporate heads would start being fare about the trouble that we are all in and start taking pay cuts like everyone else that lives in the real world it would be a better place to live in.
And don't give me that crap, oh but we did take pay cuts, oh yea what about those bonuses huh that you gave yourselves after taking little pay cuts. You ended up right back to where you left off. Come back to reality you've been gone for much too long.

Tembec wants the employees to take concession. In other words they want them to invest money in a company that is Millions in debt. Besides the cuts they want the employees to take what is the long term plan for this mill? There is no mention of one . The reinvesting of cash in the mill or looking at other paper product to be made . Lack of foresight is what kills companies bottom line and causes job losses. If you look at your employees as a liability not and asset, I call that failure to manage. I watched the video the average Tembec employee has 25 years mill experience. Tembec wake up that is a lot of knowledge that you just locked out . Has the local management picked their employees brains or researched any ideas put forward to help increase profits .
All the best to you all .
Albert Dupont
Oshawa Ont

A Quote: Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.

Adolph H.

This seems to be the latest fad going these days in the corporate world.

Read a letter today that was written to the premier of Manitoba. The letter was signed by a Chis Black Exec. Vice Pres. and Pres. Paper Group. In it was just more stretching of the truth again.
USW requested info on operating cost which never materialized, but they say(Tembec) they did give info.
Tembec also claims that the USW did not want to meet in the early summer to begin negotiations. No one was available at the local level the mill was shut down due to lack of orders.
Then there was the issue of the proposal and the date that Tembec wanted it accepted, signed, sealed, and delivered which was very unrealistic. The proposal needed to be gone through with much reading, researching, and discussion. It reminds me of the 1000 page document coming out of the White House in Washington, D.C. in that situation Congress voted without reading it. What is this another new fad of some kind.
In another paragraph Tembec says to the premier that they are committed to keeping the premier informed as appropriate relative to any progress on negotiations should they resume, "more like misinformed."
Before any talks or meetings took place with Tembec and the USW, Tembec called in a conciliator from the Ministry of Labour to attend the so called negotiations. I was under the impression or understanding that in the negotiating process that if an impasse is reached within the negotiations and nobody can agree to anything than a conciliator is called in to try to break the impasse. What are they up to?
So another day of B.S. goes by and the white collar workers still want to take from the blue collars.
Who makes these people at the top their money, the employees do. Did they forget that? Yes times are hard but lets really work together on what we can do about it and not screw people up the behind already! Those at the top are the ones that cost the company money, they got it all ass backwards. It's ridicules for a few people that run a company to be making millions over the lean years and or when times are though financially and a company is in hugh debt. The fat is at the top and the top is where it needs to be trimmed down, that's where it begins.

Tembec should be asking itself as a corporate citizen of the Pine Falls and area . What have they done or plan to do with the mill to make it profitable. Mr. Black seems to think that concessions are the answer. That is a short term solution for a company that is millions in debt. Talking about black, there has been a black cloud of uncertainty over this community for to long. The people want to know will there be a mill in operation or not . I know (Je me souvient de Marathon)they took concessions the final result was closure of the mill. We need long term solutions here if not it will be Marathon all over again. That was a joint venture two companies Tembec and Kurger. Allo, sound familiar. It's strange how the Tembec unionize employees all of a sudden turned red,grew horns and started picketing. Wow. What has the local management done to help the mill survive? In this day of eco this eco that the green wave it is called. Why would close your recycle department(deink)and shrink your costumer base? It's easy that's why. Looks good in the books for the first year and comes back and bites you in the bottom line $$$. Isn't the mill manager a local boy? Shame on you. Have you looked at other paper product to be made? Shame on you again . Total failure to manage from the top to the local management. I wasn't at the table so I can only speculate. From what I read there was no negotiating. No long term plan. It was all one sided take it or leave it . What is the negotiating committee that represent the employees to do? I feel for everyone in the Pine Falls and surrounding areas these are tough,stressful times.
All the best. I will keep watching.

Your right about the local boy that manages the Pine Falls Mill, he does not know how to manage. After all, he's just an engineer, not management material, and definetly not a people person. Very arrogant too. Well arrogance runs rampant in this Tembec group, it's like a bad virus that never goes away.

TO:notaslave
Parasite is another word that comes to mind. They feed and move on to another host. An engineer, bet he would screw up scamble eggs. Well hope all you guys are hanging in there. Say Hi to the members for me .
Albert

Thanks Albert for your input and I sure will say hello to the guys for you.

Since Tembec has bought our Mill, we lost a lot of smart tradesmen and technical people. It's sad when a company such as Tembec doesn't recognize it's good work force and the intelligent and experienced people that they have, now most of them are gone. We are now left with incompetent upper management.
Tembec brought in consultants to see how and where the efficiency of our mill could be improved. The consultants made a lot of improvements that the employees on the floor had suggested many times in the past, but were not or never listened to. This is the kind of mentality that we have out here from upper management. The most ridicules and stupid thing that I ever heard from upper management is, "they have the right to mis manage" and that comes from the top here in the Pine Falls Mill.
God help us all.

I am not even going to corporate. The local management has to step up to the plate.Why I ask you, why have you sat on your hands while the paper industry is going down the tube???? In the last news flash why are still sitting on your hands?? I have given suggestion as many your unionizes workers have done.I have to come to only one conclusion you don't care as long as the bonuses keep coming. You can do better than that . As part of the corporate team where are your new ideas? I mean long term. If you have no plan sell it to the employees.Been there done that. I will do it again. Yes we will . Take Care.
Manitoba Moose

The local management head is just an arrogant puppet with a little bit of brain to do their bidding, controlled by his master.
The corporate heads will continue to rape their company for as long as it will exist.
Pine Falls can and is a money maker for them, and they will never sell just this one mill because of that.
But what they want to do is take from the blue collar workers so they themselves the white collars can make bigger bonuses and keep filling their pockets.
People in the corporate world lost track and don't know how to be honarable, honest, and moral anymore. It's become so vile, filthy, crooked, and deceitful these days and all of this doesn't even occur to them that their being like that. They are so caught up in themselves that they believe their own lies to be truth.
Again, they totally forget who's making them the money.
Why won't they come back down off their high horses and be good examples to show their employees that, yes we are willing to help save our company so let us all pitch in to reduce our salaries, and wages and not take any bonuses and weather this storm out together until things get better. And when everything does get better, we will all, profit from it. Now if it were that way, wouldn't everyone be proud to say, yes I work for a very good company. We would stand out among all others.

To Albert and notaslave,


"Why I ask you, why have you sat on your hands while the paper industry is going down the tube???? In the last news flash why are still sitting on your hands??"


The sales and marketing people have been telling us for years that the market for newsprint is declining.I remember seeing graphs ten years ago that predicted the rate of decline. Very slow, but steady. Knowing this, what has Tembec, or other newsprint manufacturers, been doing to ensure that they can compete in future potential paper markets? Is Tembec focusing on more than monthly, quarterly, and annual reports? Corporations that have enough vision to adapt to changing and evolving markets survive.


Does Tembec have a plan for Pine Falls?

"Tembec has an overall strategy for improving the competitive position of Pine Falls, a critical element of which is to achieve an immediate and significant reduction in labour cost per tonne produced. However, it appears that serious negotiation on the critical cost issues will not be allowed to occur," concluded Mr. Black.

http://www.stockhouse.com/tools/?page=%2FFinancialTools%2Fsn_newsreleases.asp%3Fsymbol%3DT.TMB%26newsid%3D7434733


It's hard not to get cynical when labour costs become the issue .If the unions agreed to take a 10% cut, it wouldn't be enough. It's never enough. In my opinion, corporate executives who continually obsess about labour costs like Mr. Black simply demonstrate that they have no vision, imagination or talent.


Besides lowering labour costs, has Tembec related any other components of their "overall strategy"? Since Tembec's philosophy, as it relates to their Results Management Framework, promotes adult behaviour, why would they not sit down and discuss these issues like adults with the Unions and other stakeholders?


Let's hope that Tembec's plan for the future of the Pine Falls operation is a good one.


To notaslave,


Does your local mill manager accept responsibility for his mistakes, or does he ultimately blame others for his mistakes?

I think I know the answer. Corporations are littered with individuals that exhibit that form of pathology.

Anyone wanting to know what we are up against should visit this website:

www.tembecworker.com

This should help shed some light on what kind of company Tembec really is.

As for your question on the mill manager, your more than likely guessed right, and I'll add to that, very proud, too proud and definitely not in the right way.
With these big companies it's always about labour cost, what about CEO, Executive, and all the rest in top positions that take millions, what about that cost?
No, their not sharing their over all strategy and that's part of the problem as well. The union wants to work with them on an over all strategy, but it seems they won't let them.
About being adults, well maybe someone has something to hide, just my opinion.