When a small town loses its biggest employer, the blow lands hard. Imagine an interior community of about 11,000 people whose economy has turned for generations on a single sawmill. This winter the owners of that mill, Timberline Forest Products in the British Columbia town of Fairmont Creek, brought in automated cutting lines and trimmed their workforce from 720 to 320. The 400 workers losing their shifts were each given three choices: a transfer, an early pension, or a lump-sum payout. About 90 agreed to move to the company's larger mill farther north. Another 150, mostly veteran hands with enough years behind them, are leaning toward the early pension. The rest were offered a payout worth roughly nine months' wages, though many find it hard to get excited about once they learn the government will take back close to 40 percent. The remainder have yet to make up their minds. Worried about the town's future, the local council has opened a retraining centre.
Colette Fournier does not mince words. She and her husband had banked on another few solid years at the saw line, and, certain their jobs were safe, had spent freely rather than tucking money away. Moving is out of the question, she says: housing near the company's other mill costs far more, so the family would only slide back into debt. "They call it three choices," she says, "but at our stage of life not one of them really works."
