After slightly more than three years in operational limbo, the doors have finally been officially closed on Winton Global Lumber, bringing to an end an operation that lasted nearly 60 years and saw three generations of workers and management on its payroll.
And with Thursday's announcement, severance will finally be paid out to the plant's 134 employees.
Sinclar Group Forest Products, the venture's majority owners, announced the decision Thursday.
"It's the end of an era," said Sinclar Group president Greg Stewart. "It was a brand in the industry that everyone recognized, that people had come to rely on to provide employment for their families."
Winton Global Lumber's Bear Lake sawmill and Prince George planer mill, which produced 300-million board feet a year of dimension lumber, were put on indefinite shutdown in June 2008 as the U.S. housing market took a turn for the worse.
Stewart acknowledged the hardship the long wait had caused on employees.
Employees will receive 10 days pay for each year of service, he said.
"That's hard when you're looking to support a family and you don't know where your income's going to come from," Stewart said. "As it drags on, you have to make some pretty hard choices and I appreciate that there's been a lot of frustration and stress that's been caused over the length of this decision."
United Steelworkers local 1-424 president Frank Everitt said the closure and consequent severance payouts, although sad news, brings certainly to a process "that lasted a lot longer than anybody ever anticipated."
Winton Global Homes remains in operation, Stewart emphasized.
U.S. HOUSING SLUMP SPELLS END
With the U.S. housing market predicted to remain in a slump for some time yet - TD Bank says in a report a recovery will come late in 2013 - Stewart said it was simply time to make the closure permanent.
"Knowing what we know today, I would say we would've taken a different approach," Stewart said. "But when we shut that mill down indefinitely in June of 2008, we had every hope and desire to reopen that mill after we had made it through the initial downturn.
"We never expected the economy to struggle as deeply and as broadly as it has and even up to this year we were optimistic that we were going to see a significant improvement in the overall housing market in the U.S. and that just hasn't materialized.
"And when you look at the forecast going forward, it's pretty bleak in terms of a fast recovery."
Turning to China, as others have done successfully, was out of the question for Winton Global Lumber, Stewart said, because it lacked the size to absorb the risk and volatility associated with selling into the that market at this time.
OTHER VENTURES REMAIN IN BUSINESS
Sinclar Group's other ventures, which employ 600 people, will continue to operate.
Winton Global Lumber was Sinclar's only dimension lumber producer and the rest of its mills produce stud lumber. It's exported into the U.S. and Japan but Stewart said Winton Global's reputation for quality is helping it through the downturn.
"We're the largest stud manufacturer of Western SPF [Spruce, Pine, Fir] in North America and so we have a very strong presence in the marketplace," Stewart said.
Winton Global Homes will remain in business and continue to produce trusses, building components and prefabricated homes, Stewart said.
The next step will be to sell either the plant or the individual assets at each of the sites.
"We haven't entertained any of those discussions," Stewart said. "We had been working hard to try and find a way to restart those operations."
Winton Global Lumber was established in Prince George as The Pas Lumber Co. in 1954 and acquired by by Sinclar Group in 1987, when it was still known as Sinclar Enterprises. It was renamed Winton Global Lumber in 2004.
Stewart said it was because of the employees that Winton Global Lumber was able to maintain a high-quality brand. "We're effectively saying goodbye to three generations [of employees and management] and that's hard," Stewart said.
