AV Group NB Inc. will temporarily idle its dissolving-pulp mill in Nackawic, N.B., by the end of October, cutting roughly 350 jobs in a rural community that counted just 962 residents in the last census, the company confirmed this week. The layoffs, which Unifor says will hit 228 of its own members at Local 219 alone, mean the shutdown will directly cost jobs to more than a third of everyone who lives in the town.
Mike Legere, a spokesperson for AV Group, said the mill’s dissolving-grade pulp, used mainly in textile manufacturing, has become harder to sell profitably. “There is presently a surplus of dissolving-grade pulp on the marketplace,” he said, according to Global News, adding that prices have not kept pace with production costs. Nackawic-Millville Mayor Tim Fox put it more bluntly: “It’s no secret the global forest industry is not great right now.”
The company and New Brunswick’s government have both called the closure temporary. Natural Resources Minister John Herron described it as a “temporary idling of operations” and said Fredericton is “working on a response plan to support those who need it most,” according to CBC News. Premier Susan Holt said her government is “putting a support plan in place,” though neither official has released details on what that support will look like or when it will arrive.
Unifor is not convinced the mill will simply switch back on. “There is no space to shut this mill down and think it is going to restart again,” said Jennifer Murray, the union’s Atlantic regional director, warning that once a facility like this goes idle, the machinery, supply chains and skilled workforce can be difficult to rebuild. National president Lana Payne called it “a devastating day for our AV Nackawic members and their families who have built their lives around this mill, and for an entire community that has depended on this operation for generations.”
That skepticism has history behind it that has gone largely unmentioned in the coverage so far. The Nackawic mill was originally built between 1967 and 1970 to employ residents displaced by construction of the Mactaquac Dam, and it operated for more than three decades as the town’s largest employer under the St. Anne-Nackawic Pulp Company. That company went bankrupt and shut the mill down on Sept. 14, 2004, throwing the town into a crisis it took more than a year to climb out of. The mill sat dark until New Brunswick’s government helped broker a deal with Tembec and India’s Aditya Birla Group, reopening it in January 2006 under the AV Nackawic name. This is not the first time Nackawic has had to wait and see whether a “temporary” setback becomes permanent.
Beyond the immediate layoffs, Unifor says the closure threatens the wider forestry supply chain. The union estimates the Nackawic mill and AV Group’s sister operation in Atholville together account for roughly 70 per cent of sea-container exports moving through the Port of Saint John, meaning truckers, wood suppliers and contractors well outside Nackawic stand to lose work too. Rather than simply demanding a reopening, the union is pushing the company and the province to use the pause to diversify the plant into higher-value products such as xylitol, specialty chemicals and bioenergy, arguing that clinging to a single pulp grade in an oversupplied global market leaves the town exposed to the next downturn as well.
For now, Nackawic-Millville is left waiting on a promised provincial support plan with no timeline, while roughly one in three residents faces the loss of a paycheque this fall. Whether “temporary” holds up this time may depend less on global pulp prices than on decisions Fredericton and Aditya Birla have yet to announce.
Via CBC News and Global News.
