Avery Dennison Completes Acquisition of Vestcom

UPM and the Paperworkers’ Union have agreed on first-ever business-specific collective labour agreements for five UPM businesses. The strike at UPM mills in Finland will end immediately and employees will return to work. The strike covered UPM Pulp, UPM Communication Papers, UPM Specialty Papers, UPM Raflatac and UPM Biofuels units in Finland. UPM will restart customer deliveries as soon as possible. The conciliator submitted settlement proposals for separate collective labour agreements for UPM Pulp, UPM Communication Papers, UPM Specialty Papers, UPM Raflatac ja UPM Biofuels yesterday, and both parties approved them on April 22, 2022.

Intense negotiations between UPM and Paperworkers’ Union continue. Today the union announced a three weeks’ extension to the strike at most UPM’s Finnish mills, until 2 April 2022, unless new collective labour agreements are reached before that. The Paperworkers’ Union’s strike at UPM Pulp, UPM Biofuels, UPM Communication Papers, UPM Specialty Papers and UPM Raflatac units in Finland began 1 January 2022. Currently, approximately 200 union members work at the mills in tasks critical to society, such as power plants and water treatment facilities. “In recent weeks the parties have negotiated both in the presence of the National Concialiator as well as in one-on-one negotiations. The parties now are familiar with each other’s objectives, so the negotiators have the chance to bargain and reach business-specific agreements,” says Jyrki Hollmén, Vice President, Labour markets, UPM. “Intense negotiations will continue. We call for rapid progress and spirit of compromise, so we can find satisfactory solutions for all parties and start our mills again. UPM businesses are doing their best to advance an open dialogue between the negotiating parties,” Hollmén concludes.

UPM has signed an agreement to sell its Shotton newsprint mill site in North Wales, United Kingdom and all related assets to Eren Paper Ltd, a subsidiary of Modern Karton Sanayi Ve Ticaret A.Ş., the containerboard and corrugated packaging business of the Turkish industrial conglomerate Eren Holding. The closing of the transaction is planned for late Q3 2021. Eren’s plan is to integrate the Shotton site into its existing business units and to make further investment at the site. All 190 employees currently working at UPM Shotton will be part of the transaction. Newsprint production is planned to stop by 30 September 2021 and Eren will take over responsibility for the mill as of 1st October 2021. While the concrete timeline for the conversion plans will be communicated by Eren, it is already known that the Renewable Energy Generation plant and Material Recovery and Recycling Facility (MRRF) will continue operations throughout the conversion process, corresponding to their role in the regional utility infrastructure.