United Steelworkers Local 1-425 will be merging with 1-424 in Prince George.
President Paul French says they will now be one united front in trying to deal with membership issues.
“For years now they’ve been talking about the beetle kill coming to an end and it’s going to result in mill closures, so that’s pretty much where we are today. The allowable cut has been reduced so that makes us nervous and with the softwood lumber tariffs nobody knows what that is going to result in.”
“For the union membership especially in the wood sector we just need to make sure we’re ready to take on issues that happen…We just need to make sure the membership has the best representation that they can.”
French says that over the last couple of weeks they were conducting a referendum ballot for membership with the question if they were in favor with merging with local 1-424 to form a new local union.
He says the results which were tallied today were 70% in favor and that the presence of the chapter in Williams Lake will remain the same.