Having cemented its labour contract, the company negotiating to purchase the NewPage mill in Port Hawkesbury, N.S., has advised former employees who will, or won’t, be called back if the mill re-opens.
 
Only about 229 unionized workers will be returning to work at the mill, down from the more than 500 who were employed prior to the mill’s closure in September 2011. The potential buyer, Pacific West Commercial Corp., will only restart the supercalendered paper line, not the newsprint machine.
 
Pacific West has reached a tentative deal concerning its electrical power rate, but the agreement must be approved by the province’s utility review board. A meeting has been scheduled for July. A Pacific West spokesman told the Cape Breton Post in May that the company is ready to proceed with the restart once the electricity rate agreement is approved, so workers could be working again as early as August.
 
Despite the mill closure, work continues on a Nova Scotia Power’s biomass power cogeneration plant at the NewPage Port Hawkesbury site. The steam turbine and generator were placed in late April. Nova Scotia Power says the work on the high pressure steam piping and electrical connections for the generator can now begin. The plant should be producing power by the end of the first quarter of 2013.