Georgia Pacific has decided to close the Coos Bay lumber making facility in Coos County, Oregon. The company has decided to lay off all of the 111 employees working at the facility, who have already been notified of the closure. The job cuts are expected to begin June 10 and continue in phases until the complete closure of the facility.
According to company statement, all the employees will be paid full benefits for a period of 60 days on account of the facility closure. The severance will vary depending on each employee’s work experience with the company. Further, it stated that it will not make any new lumber at the Coos bay facility. Moreover, the remaining inventory will be shipped out.
Rick Kimble, a company spokesperson noted that the decision to close the facility is mainly on account of the prolonged closure of Coos Bay’s swing span railroad bridge, which has made shipments from the facility extremely difficult and cost-intensive. As per estimates nearly 70% of the lumber from the facility is transported by rail. The out-of-service rail bridge has forced the company to shift the lumber to an off-load center using trucks and re-load then into rail cars. This has caused economic burden for the company, Kimble said. It must be noted that the plans to reopen the rail bridge have been facing repeated delays.
Meantime, John Burns, chief executive of the Port of Coos Bay stated that the bridge is scheduled to open within the next two weeks after $3.5 million repair works. He termed the company’s decision as unfortunate.
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