If the workers at Corner Brook Pulp and Paper are seeking some direction about how to vote on the offer handed them by Kruger negotiators last Friday, they only have to listen to their national union president Dave Coles.
In an unusual show of frankness by those in high office who always choose their words carefully, Coles said over the weekend that workers should accept the offer because it is the best chance for the mill to keep running and the jobs protected.
Coles should know of what he speaks. He's seen all to many mills close and communities impacted negatively.
Just last week, owners of the newsprint mill in Liverpool, N.S. announced that operation would be shutting its doors and hundreds of workers would be laid off.
It's a sad but familiar story. The newsprint industry is continuing to be dragged down by a seemingly endless spiral caused by too much production and too few customers.
Newspapers are having an equally tough time surviving around the world and they are using less and less newsprint.
The digital age has dawned and that is bad news for those operations which produce newsprint, the people who work there and communities where they are an important cog in their economies.
Equally sad is the fact that the more mills that close elsewhere, the better the outlook is for Corner Brook Pulp and Paper.
It's a case of prospering off someone else's misery but that's the nature of the business these days — survival of the fittest.
There will always be a market for some newsprint and if the local mill can hang on and be one of the survivors, it could have a solid future.
Mill workers are now pondering if they will accept the Kruger offer which will impose upon them more cuts and fewer benefits.
In truth it's their jobs and their futures, not Dave Coles, or the premier's, and they will have to weigh the consequences of their decision carefully.
