BANGOR (AP) – The union representing workers at the abandoned Lincoln Pulp and Paper Co. mill has been offered a six-year contract that could prove pivotal in a Connecticut company’s plans to buy the company.

The contract is being offered by First Paper Holding Corp. LLC, which is hoping to buy bankrupt Eastern Pulp and Paper Corp. and its mills in Lincoln and Brewer. A vote is scheduled Tuesday.

Contract approval is vital to First Paper Holding proceeding with its purchase of Eastern Pulp and Paper, said John Wissmann, a First Paper Holding partner.

“If they don’t accept it, then things could be over,” Wissmann said. “This is a difficult deal to put together. All of the parts have to fit. Without labor, it makes no sense for us to own the mill.”

The contract includes a 10 percent pay increase over six years, a restoration of five weeks of vacation time by January 2006, and pension and health care benefits, said Steve Corriveau, president of PACE No. 1-0396.

About 300 union members would operate the machines and the pulping plant; the No. 7 tissue machine would be the first paper machine restarted and the pulping operation would go on line in late June, he added.

Corriveau said he’s satisfied with the contract.

“I’m happy that the mill is coming up,” he said. “It’s going to be tough, but it’s better than the alternative.”

More than 700 workers at Eastern Pulp’s mills in Lincoln and Brewer lost their jobs when the firm shut down operations Jan. 16 after three years under bankruptcy protection.

On March 12, a bankruptcy judge ordered that the mills be abandoned and returned to their Massachusetts owner.

Union approval of the contract is just one part the deal.

First Paper Holding is negotiating with lenders and creditors on a purchase agreement that would spell out the future for the Lincoln mill as well as its sister facility, Eastern Fine Paper Co. in Brewer.

The agreement is up for consideration at a bankruptcy hearing Wednesday in Portland, where First Paper Holding must convince U.S. Bankruptcy Chief Judge James B. Haines Jr. to reconsider his abandonment order and allow a sale.

The Brewer mill would not reopen anytime soon, and First Paper Holding and that mill’s union have not had any contract negotiations.

Jack Cashman, commissioner of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, said the Brewer mill is included in the sales terms, but that “the principal buyers are more interested in Lincoln.”

AP-ES-04-19-04 1059EDT