RUMFORD – MeadWestvaco is advertising for full-time pulp and paper laborers.
It’s the first time in several years that the paper company has sought hourly employees. Scores of salaried and hourly workers were laid off in recent years.
According to an advertisement that appeared in Sunday’s newspapers, applicants should show up between 7:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 26, or Thursday, May 27, at the American Legion Hall on Congress Street.
Paper-making experience is preferred for the $11.77 per hour jobs.
If 1,500 applications are taken before the end of the second day, the application period will end early. Efforts to reach a spokesman for the mill were unsuccessful.
Local 900 Union President Gary Hemingway said he expects 10 to 15 people to be hired to work on Nos. 10, 11, and 12 paper machines.
He said a recent plan calling for overtime hours when one of the down machines started up again did not work out.
“There are so many people working overtime that it’s dangerous,” he said. “They did away with 45 hourly jobs. They cut too deep.”
Sunday’s advertisements, though, were good news, he said.
MeadWestvaco employs about 1,150 people locally. An announcement that 30 salaried employees would be cut was made last year. The company is still cutting those positions, said Hemingway.
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