RUMFORD – The union representing more than 800 hourly workers at NewPage Corp. has merged with the United Steelworkers.
Hourly employees at NewPage Corp. have been members of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union for seven years, Local 900 Secretary Ron Hemingway said.
The vote to go with the United Steelworkers of America was taken just before the sale of five of MeadWestvaco’s paper mills, including the Rumford one. That sale was completed on May 2.
Local 900 President Gary Hemingway said the decision to merge with United Steelworkers was made for a variety of reasons, including the greater clout it would have on behalf of union membership.
Because United Steelworkers has 850,000 members, the union’s defense fund has millions of dollars set aside. Gary Hemingway said this includes such things as legal work during strikes or lockouts, and a strike fund for employees. The larger union also has more money for lobbying, such as supporting retention of the current Social Security system and opposing the proposed Central American Free Trade Act.
The Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union had more than 240,000 members.
Gary Hemingway said United Steelworkers now represents about 4,000 hourly workers in the five mills owned by NewPage Corp. The corporation is owned by a group of New York investors known as Cerberus Capital Management LLC and owns paper mills in Ohio, Maryland, Kentucky and Michigan, besides the Rumford mill.
The trend for the merger of labor unions has been triggered by the declining number of businesses and industries with union shops and the corresponding lower number of union workers, both Hemingways said.
“There is strength in numbers,” said Ron Hemingway. “There will be more money to fight for our interests.”
According to a United Steelworkers brochure, 27 percent of the union’s membership is paper and forestry employees.
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