Yesterday, Unifor Local 233 held a solidarity barbeque in Témiscaming for those 275 workers let go by Rayonier Advanced Materials (RYAM). The event took place at Dottori Park, at 90 Kipawa Street, which is just across from the RYAM plant. Before long, unionists and supporters shut down Highway 63 as they moved into the roadway, blocking traffic between Ontario and Quebec.
Police came, and the people opened a lane for traffic.
Asked if the protest was expected, Kipawa Mayor Norman Young said “What else is to be? We’re fighting for survival here, so whatever happened, happens. You don’t plan those things; the people took it into their own hands.”
“I’m really proud of them,” he added.
See: ‘Sombre mood’ in Témiscaming as layoffs made official
BayToday reached out to Témiscaming’s Mayor Pierre Gingras, but as French is his primary language, he did not feel comfortable giving a statement via phone. He suggested we talk with Mayor Young.
Young emphasized the similarities between yesterday’s event and those that occurred in 1972, when the mill closed and a year later, after much work from Frank Dottori, local entrepreneurs, unionized workers, and the government, this group was able to purchase the mill from the previous owner who was planning to shut it down. That’s when Tembec was born, which lasted in May of 2017, when RYAM, a publicly traded company with a homebase in Florida, bought it.
“We went to support them,” Mayor Young said of the event. He mentioned that North Bay’s Mayor Peter Chirico was also there, as was Mattawa’s Mayor, Raymond Bélanger, and Témiscaming’s Mayor Pierre Gingras. Many laid-off workers live in these communities, and the job losses will affect them all.
The first round of layoffs begins at the end of the week, Unifor Local 233 President, Stéphane Lefebvre previously told BayToday.
“The government needs to begin seriously looking at how to resolve the issues here,” Mayor Young said. He noted “They’re coming here on the 25th,” but the agenda remains unknown, and he figures most of the discussions will occur “behind closed doors.”
“And as a mayor, I don’t like that,” he added. “You have to be transparent; this is serious business here.”
See: It’s official, RYAM lays off 275 workers at Témiscaming plant
Mayor Young said the closure of RYAM’s cellulose plant “affects us all” within the region, and such closures are becoming a trend. “We need wood chips” to operate, “and all the mills in Ontario that are close by or close in the Province of Quebec are all closed.”
Témiscaming’s Mayor Gingras shared Young’s concerns, telling BayToday in May that “the forestry industry is in peril.”
“We’re going to put a lot of pressure on the government to work with us,” Mayor Young said. As for yesterday’s protest, what touched him most was seeing the communities come together, detailing how “there were people there that were on that roadway back in ’72, and they were there yesterday with their canes right in the middle of the road.”
“That really touched me,” Mayor Young added, “those people that stood there with us, and not just the youth, but the elders, the women and children. It was an awesome thing.”
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
