Would an AbitibiBowater bankruptcy hurt a good mill?

Local members work at Bowater Mersey Paper Company Ltd. in Brooklyn, Queens Co. “It’s hurry up and wait,” Wentzell said March 23 after learning that another deadline has come and gone and is coming again to restructure about $1.8-billion in debt on the Bowater side of AbitibiBowater Inc. This fifth deadline in Atlantic Time is 1:59 a.m. on April 1.

Wentzell continued. “You can’t stress out on things you can’t control and that’s something our members and workers don’t have any control of. We’re not educated in that field at all. We’re working people; we’re tradesmen. We don’t know where it puts us.”

However, he said with a laugh, “We would like to see if we’re still AbitibiBowater, Bank of America, Warren Buffet or KC Irving. I don’t know.”

Most business pundits believe if the American banks holding up the restructuring efforts fail to come through the company would be forced to file for bankruptcy protection. The company needs to restructure to continue with its overall goal of reducing about $6-billion in debt by more than one-third by primarily moving debt due dates ahead.

Wentzell said he doesn’t know if bankruptcy would be a bad occurrence. “What do you do? You have to wait and see. At the end of the day, we still don’t know what the better route is anyways. Are you better off being run by a bank or being run by a corporation that has a huge amount of debt.”

He added members and community residents as well are still confused over the 2007 merger of Abitibi and Bowater in the first place, as Bowater was a healthy company on its own.

But, as Wentzell said he wants to repeat, the Brooklyn mill has a power plant across the street (Brooklyn Energy), an ice-free harbour located close to the Halifax terminal and, therefore, international markets, it has experienced positive cash flow over most of the last few quarters, it has diversified with more bookpaper orders, and it is half owned by The Washington Post, although “Nobody can get a peep out of the Post.”

But, he said, “All of this is still in our favour.” Under bankruptcy, he said, it seems logical this mill would remain operating as orders dictate and-or it would be marketable.

As for why the mill is currently shut down until April 20, Wentzell said he simply doesn’t know where some of the export newsprint orders went. He said most newsprint companies around the world are no longer taking orders on credit, as one possible reason. “All I know is when we’re running, we seem to be turning out good quality; what more can anyone ask of us?”

He didn’t wish to discuss specific company issues as union contract negotiations are coming up although, “We’re not going to ask anybody to bargain until their mess is straightened out.” Currently, the union Locals are working on “settling some outstanding issues (local grievances) before crunch time comes,” Wentzell said.

AbitbiBowater as a whole is the union’s “pattern” company this year, meaning other Union Locals will use any resulting contract at all companies involved as the basis for local contracts.

Wentzell did want to say the Union is not out to hurt the company. He said community talk like that bothers him because it isn’t logical. He said Union members actually want to keep their jobs. “We don’t want the mill to crash. The only difference between us and them is we put people first.”

Wentzell said his only primary worry is the constant “doom and gloom” heard in the media and elsewhere about the newspaper industry and how it would affect potential buyers of the mill if the company went bankrupt. “Maybe we could make toilet paper; that’s got to be a growing business.”