NewPage Cuts 39 More Positions at Kimberly, Wis., Mill
By Pete Bach, The Post-Crescent, Appleton, Wis.
Jul. 16–KIMBERLY — The jobs of 39 production workers at the NewPage Corp. paper mill gradually will be phased out during the next 14 months.
The workers, among the 110 whose positions will be eliminated, received formal layoff notices this past week. According to the notice filed with the state Division of Workforce Development, the permanent layoffs will begin Sept. 8 and continue in phases until Sept. 9, 2009.
“There’s a lot of people who have to start over,” said Andy Nirschl, president of Local 2-9 of the United Steelworkers, which represented about 480 hourly workers before the Miamisburg, Ohio-based NewPage’s acquisition of the mill last December.
About 50 workers took early retirement or found other jobs and took the voluntary severance package that was offered.
“They had that option open,” Nirschl said. “Quite a few people left and found other jobs and they got the severance.”
The job cuts come in the wake of NewPage’s decision to permanently shut down the oldest of three paper machines at the Kimberly mill. The actions were part of a plan to achieve $265 million in savings corporate-wide this year after its acquisition of Finnish Stora Enso’s North American assets. The $2.5 billion deal closed in December.
The entire mill currently is idle but will resume production July 21.
NewPage ordered the downtime because of volatile energy, raw material and transportation costs and weak demand for the mill’s premium coated paper used by high-end publications.
NewPage spokeswoman Shawn Hall said the company is “trying to do everything we can” to keep costs down and balance production with market demands.
NewPage accelerated its previously announced closure of the Niagara mill, which put more than 300 people out of work.
Nirschl said about 90 union workers were affected by the cuts at the Kimberly facility, which employed 575 people, including those in management positions before the ownership change took effect.
The oldest paper machine began operating in 1958 when the mill was owned by Kimberly-Clark Corp., Nirschl said. It was shut down June 3.
The two remaining machines were installed in 1980 and 1988 and both have been modified since.
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