Appelton Papers To Lay Off 330 Ohio Workers

Once again, your job is only of value to the company as long as they can't figure out a way to do things cheaper by replacing you. Here is the Dayton Daily News with the details:

The 400 employees at Appleton Papers Inc.’s plant in West Carrollton were not prepared Thursday for the news that three-fourths of them stand to lose their jobs following a $3 billion deal with a Canadian supplier.

The workers were “flabbergasted, heartbroken, taken by surprise,” said Jim Allen, president of Local 266 of the United Steelworkers, which represents plant workers. “We were knocked down.”

I'll bet. So what was the reason behind the decision?

Appleton plans to let go of 330 workers and cease making paper at the West Alex Bell Road plant following a 15-year deal with Domtar Corp., based in Montreal.

Domtar will supply Wisconsin-based Appleton with most of the uncoated base paper it needs to make thermal, carbonless and other specialty paper products, negating the need to make the base paper at the West Carrollton plant.

About 100 employees would remain at the plant to run its thermal paper coating operations, Appleton said.

Mark Richards, Appleton’s chairman, president and chief executive, called the move a “competitive necessity.”

“Our employees have never wavered in their dedication to excellence and to serving our customers,” Richards said. “What has changed is the economics of the industry in which we compete.”

“Nonintegrated” paper mills — mills that don’t produce pulp from logs or wood chips gathered on site — are “distinctly disadvantaged and no longer competitive,” the Appleton release added. The local mill must purchase pulp and recycle waste paper.

The idea that nonintegrated mills are less efficient is not new. But Van Dan Brandt said the cost of pulp, driven by worldwide demand, is higher than ever.

Since 2005, 25 nonintegrated mills in the U.S. have closed, including four in Ohio, Van Den Brandt said.

NAFTA - the gift that just keeps on giving.