We were cheered by last week’s news that 25 percent of the workers displaced by the closure of International Paper Co.’s Franklin mill already have landed on their feet — even before the final wave of workers leaves the IP campus on June 30.
Randy Betz, vice president of workforce development for Paul D. Camp Community College, has been tracking the employment of mill workers since IP’s announcement last fall that the mill would close this spring. As of Friday, 275 mill employees had either started other jobs or accepted job offers.
Forestry is big business in Virginia and produces more than $23 billion of goods and services annually in the Commonwealth. There are nearly 700 wood products manufacturing facilities in Virginia. Additionally, byproducts from these manufacturing operations are burned to produce electricity that saves more than 2 million barrels of oil annually.
The IP (International Paper) Economic Recovery Task Force Forestry Committee has worked to provide information to interested companies that may want to locate on the mill site or other potential sites in our area. Our region has come to the attention of domestic and international companies hoping to capitalize on our location, our natural resource and our valuable and experienced workforce.
Generally speaking, when people in the forest industry talk about their wood basket, they are referring to an area where wood is available that may be used by a particular manufacturer such as a paper mill, sawmill, pellet mill, particleboard mill, chip mill or any other wood-using facility.
If we look at our wood basket within a 100-mile haul distance from Franklin, there are 58 counties and cities in Virginia and North Carolina that provide timber to the overall market.
Six years ago, Randy Betz lost his job at the International Paper mill as part of a corporate downsizing.
Now, as vice president of workforce development at Paul D. Camp Community College, he is helping hundreds of workers at the mill do what he did – find a new start. The mill stopped production last month and is expected to close in June.
In an interview at the school last week, Betz said he is encouraged by the number that have already found work. Most of those, he said, will not have to leave the area. What follows are excerpts from the interview.
As the afternoon shift change unfolded at International Paper Co.’s Franklin mill on Friday, change was in the air.
And on the ground.
Friday was the last day for 212 workers at the mill as it prepares to shut down for good this summer, eliminating 1,100 jobs. Many left their hard hats on the ground just outside the mill entrance. Dates of employment and other messages were scrawled on almost all of them.
“In God We Trust, Not IP.”
“That’s All Folks!”
“Good Luck Everyone!”
Oscar Babb of Franklin — an employee of the mill for 32 years, most of them as a millwright — crouched down to take pictures of the makeshift memorial of hard hats, boots and clothing.
“It was very sad,” Babb said. “It’s just like losing your family. No, it was losing family.”
The largest group of International Paper Co. workers, 348 total, will be terminated from their jobs at the paper mill this weekend.
Franklin Mill Communications Manager Desmond Stills said Thursday that after this weekend there would be about 250 workers left at the mill. That figure takes into account employees who have voluntarily left their jobs earlier.
The Virginian-Pilot
© May 2, 2010
FRANKLIN
George Steinbach started working at the paper mill outside Franklin in 1937, even before it began making paper. He never expected it would stop in his lifetime.
But two weeks ago the machines shut down. International Paper will phase out employment at the mill and officially close it in June.
Steinbach retired in 1973, long before International Paper bought the mill in 1999 and in January, he turned 102, making him perhaps the oldest living former employee. He even remembers when the mill produced only brown paper.
By Philip Walzer
The Virginian-Pilot
© April 30, 2010
For more than 100 workers, today will be the last day on the job at the International Paper mill outside Franklin.
International Paper announced in October that it would close the mill this year, laying off 1,100 employees. The mill stopped producing paper two weeks ago and is phasing out workers through June.
It now has more than 800 workers, spokesman Desmond Stills said in an e-mail. “Today, April 30, is the last day for 106 employees,” he wrote.
The mill will continue shipping paper from the mill through mid-June and will then begin a final clean-up, he said.
Jim Councill
Published Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Well, an era has ended. The 123-year history of the famed and benevolent Camp Brothers — from Camp Manufacturing to Union Camp and finally International Paper — has reached its final crescendo as a world-class manufacturer of fine paper.
The finest in the land, made by the finest employees any company could dream of having. Thanks to the most recent 1,100 employees and the thousands of others who have over these 123 years put Franklin and Isle of Wight and Southampton counties on the world map of outstanding products and product development.
By Charlie Passut | Tidewater News
Published Wednesday, April 21, 2010
FRANKLIN—International Paper Co. will terminate 350 workers, most of them hourly employees, beginning over three days in mid-May as it prepares to shutdown its mill, eliminating 1,100 jobs.
IP made the announcement in a letter dated March 12 to Isle of Wight County Board Chairman Phillip Bradshaw in compliance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
