Everett mill contract OK’d

Published 9:00 pm Friday, December 23, 2005

EVERETT – Managers at Kimberly-Clark Corp.’s pulp and paper mill and its unionized employees have reached a new six-year agreement that calls for wage increases totaling 13 percent and a new health plan.

The new contract, covering 710 employees at the Everett plant, was ratified by members of the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers in voting that ended Thursday.

Wages, which will go up by about 2 percent a year through May 2011, were never the first concern of union officials during the negotiations, which began in April and involved 64 days of bargaining sessions. At the top of the union’s list was Kimberly-Clark’s proposal to cut wages in the mill’s distribution and materials handling departments.

Scott Helker, manager of the mill, said the idea was to give those jobs to entry-level employees to reduce costs. Existing employees in those departments were to be offered high-wage jobs in other areas of the mill.

But union officials worried about those jobs. The final agreement strengthened protections for those who don’t shift to other areas of the mill immediately, Helker said.

John Minor, who leads Local 183 at the mill, said the protections are good for existing workers, but not people who will be hired later.

“In fact, we’ll be creating a two-tier rate schedule at the mill,” he said. “People coming after them will be second-class citizens.”

However, Minor called the contract a balanced one in which both sides won and lost.

“It’s the best we could do without a strike,” he said.

Kimberly-Clark’s proposal to put employees on the same health plan as workers at other mills, which would be more affordable for the company and also cheaper for workers, also met with some opposition. Union workers said they would lose control over their health plan in the future if they accepted the companywide plan.

Under the final compromise, workers will be brought into the companywide plan in 2007, but one of the existing local health plans also will be offered for those who want it through 2011.

“It is a balance,” Helker said of the new contract. “It isn’t everything the company wanted, and I’m sure it’s not all the union wanted, but it’s a compromise. It will help our competitive advantage.”

He added that the two sides put much effort into the last few weeks of negotiations. It was only a month ago that workers, after overwhelmingly rejecting the company’s offer, were talking about a strike.

“Each side made necessary compromises. In the end, that translated into additional job security for union employees and increased competitiveness for the mill as a whole,” Kevin Standerfer, president of the pulp and paper workers’ Local 644, said in a written statement announcing the new agreement.

Minor added: “We’re determined to take this agreement and use it as a foundation upon which to build. We look forward to our affirmed partnership with Kimberly-Clark.”

The company’s complex in Everett makes bath tissue and other paper products, and includes Kimberly-Clark’s only U.S. pulp plant. In 2004, with overtime, the average wage for hourly employees was $67,000.

Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.