There will be yet another "Special Water Board Meeting." 9am Tuesday Dec. 30th. Eureka City Chambers. Don't look for Evergreen to pull another "Rabbit out of the Hat." They are now 13 million dollars in debt and a recent potential buyer backed out of the deal with no new prospective buyers on the horizon. So Chinese company Lee and Man has basically raped our natural resources and ripped off local United States workers with little repercussion. That is basically how I see it.
Sure you workers aren't ready to talk about an "Employee Stock Options Plan?" Or ready to bury this mill and move on? Please post your thoughts.
So what happens?
ReplyDeleteDidn't they make millions of dollars in improvements when they took over?
Is everyone out of a job now?
There are a lot of opportunities coming together:
ReplyDelete(1) Lee & Man is on the hook for plant cleanup; if they don't they will never be able to operate in the U.S. again. They would probably be willing to sell the plant cheap to get out of that obligation (like for $1 and the promise (for what that is worth) to take 300,000 tons of pulp at $350/ton).
(2) With all the bailout money in Washington, there has to be $10 million for an employee owned mill in California. What do the politicos say?
(3) With the cost of the water bills falling on the community, there has to be some room to maneuver in that area.
(4) There are "vulture" funds who have invested in distressed mills in other parts of the country.
The things that are lacking are:
- A leader to pull this together.
- A politician willing to do more than just wring his hands.
- Willingness on the part of the workers to consider an employee owned mill.
- A statement from the community (politicos, regulators etc) that they would back the mill.
My guess is that this will be another coulda/shoulda story in a few years.
Who was the recent potential buyer and why didn't the deal close? How many of our local vendors are still owed money? This is terrible. There must be some money and something still in the works since a few salaried. employees are still working at the mill. This is true dedication to work for a foreign company for no pay, or just denial of the facts that the mill is finished.
ReplyDeleteMaybe your source doesn't have correct information.
According to this report, Kaitlin is too busy jet-setting to New Mexico to show.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to the other water directors finally pulling the plug on this mess.
Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap jet-setting. That's a laugh. Your envy isn't becoming, 5:41.
ReplyDelete5:09pm- My information is absolute. Not rumored. Evergreen is busted. Now what. Got me.
ReplyDeleteTake control or just walk away?
Other 5:09pm- Yep. Now will workers listen or just move on?
Does that include the management?
ReplyDeleteYou didn't seem to mind the rip off
ReplyDeleteas long as they were investing all
that money and all you union guys
were getting paid...you union guys
need to grow up and quit crying..
You are a big part of the problem..
Why don't you guys occupy the mill, Republic Factory style, to demand your severance pay?
ReplyDeleteHow are unpaid workers with families to feed part of the problem? Blaming a union for wanting to make sure their workers had a livable wage? One of the few that was left in Humboldt.
ReplyDeleteRich, There has to be a way to get everyone onboard a ESOP
A couple of years ago Richard and the other workers thought Lee & Man were the best thing ever. Local business of the year, great community supporters. Big Business doesn't give a fuck about workers. The mill is dead. Time to move on.
ReplyDelete9:35pm Yes
ReplyDelete11:51pm Republic Window had B of A as a creditor. B of A was bailed out 25 million so were able to politically pressure there way to get paid. We do not have a creditor to go after. Lee and Man has abandoned ship.
Rambo-I wished I knew how to get workers to "buy in."
8:45am-Guilty as charged. Would not have dreamed of this scenario.
"According to this report, Kaitlin is too busy jet-setting to New Mexico to show.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to the other water directors finally pulling the plug on this mess."
Seems like Kaitlin has a stalker on her hands to deal with,amongst her other duties.
Just who is willing to invest what money they have left. All Trust is gone. Not only with the goverment but with the investors.
ReplyDeleteYou guys should know by now
ReplyDeletethat all Kaitlin really wants
to do is shut down the mill...
That has been one of her main
objectives sent she got there..
Haven't you all heard the edict from Mark Konkler?
ReplyDeleteIf you dare to criticize an elected official, you are officially a stalker.
So shut up and do what your DUHC masters order you to. Resistance is futile.
Judging by past blog thread comments, and or lack of there of, it appears that Richard just does not have the support or interest of the majority of his fellow Evergreen workers to pursue some form of an ESOP type of investment or joint partnership in the mill operation.
ReplyDeleteIt has been also noted that Rich has had some previous experience in organizing.
Again, even when using his organizing skills, he has not seemed to have been able to persuade a simple majority of his union membership to look into some type of partnership in order to buy the mill (if it even does become for sale at some point). There just doesn't appear to be any interest.
So, since this is the last remaining pulp mill in California, maybe another option for the community (if the operation does not reopen) is that the mill could be transformed into a pulp making museum.
Ex-mill workers could thus become docents or volunteers, guiding tours of bay area retirees and others through the former pulp mill operation and explaining how the local workforce once made pulp there.
There may be funds or grants available to help create such a pulp mill museum.
You may be able to have some of the former managers approach TAPPI or another one of the pulp and paper management associations to seek donations in order help assist you in this process.
Another organization which you may want to approach to donate to such a museum endeavor is the AWPPW union.
They may be able to also design some form of a display and construct it at the millsite which explains their union's history and how through various trade agreements, the west coast mills and their workforce (which this union serviced) have slowly diminished over the past couple of decades.
The AWPPW could also probably provide a chart for display purposes, which might depict the disparity between what U.S. workers make in wages verses their fellow Asian pulp and paper worker counterparts.
Perhaps our own government could also step in and construct a tour display or an interpretive information kiosh which explains to everyone why we as an industrialized country, have been so supportive of free trade, even when many domestic manufacturing plants have closed and then have either relocated down to Mexico, or overseas to Asia.
Again, the above is just one idea or suggestion. Someone might have a better one.
What happened to Rex?
ReplyDeleteHe was let go before everything went really south. He would be supporting the workers if he was there. He probably would not fabricate the stories that are being told now is why he is gone. Someone said he has been working on his youth fields in Cutten quite a bit.
ReplyDeletelet the homeless that shit in the dunes occupy the mill. If they produced a little pulp they would have something to wipe their assess with.
ReplyDeleteThis has been coming for some time. The writing was very clearly on the wall when Lee & Man took the $12.0 million which was what the last pulp shipment was worth and called it an internal transfer so as to avoid having to pay Evergreen for the pulp produced by Evergreen.
ReplyDeleteI guess Rex's trip to Canada with David Tsang a couple of weeks ago to sell that last potential buyer did not go so well.
Which means Rex Bohn is still mobbed up with these Chinese thieves, contrary to the other claims made here.
ReplyDeleteWhen these recent companies purchased the mill, did they come into the area as the economic rejuvenaters, or has it been more like the mill assets liquidaters?
ReplyDeleteGuess third time around is the charm.
If Anon 8:32 is correct then, Richard's prior phrase "cut and run" should now be rephrased to "take the money and run"!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a familiar song, too.
The sad thing is that thwere is collateral damage from these thieves slinking away like they did. I work at the Power plant next door so when they shut the water off I will be out of a job as well. Our sage management was told 4 years ago to get off their line but that advice was ignored. Good luck to all of you. There will soon be no manufacturing at all here except for a few sawmills that are holding on by their tetth. All this is caused, in the minds of some, by greedy workers that want to make more than 10 bucks an hour. Unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I have heard Rex Bohn has been trying to find domestic buyers to consider the mill, the haters will spin that any way they can and Richard has said the same that Rex was accessible and looked out for the workings of the mill.
ReplyDeleteOnce this generation of U.S.unionized middle class has come to pass, the only reference of Unions and or their members will be found in academic high school history books as this country fully embraces and readily accepts a large influx of inexpensive manufactured goods peddled by a politically driven global agenda and willingly produced by poverty paid Asian employees.
ReplyDeleteConsider an employee owned mill?
ReplyDeleteWho would we find that we could trust?
Who would we find that could run the place as if it were going to last?
How could we rebuild the reputation in the communality?
Who would open the books?
Just wait until Richard make the next Post-
ReplyDeleteI would think it is going to be a little more positive.
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