J.D. Irving and woodlot owners feud over price | CBC NB
Posted by ac on August 18th, 2010
“Woodlot owners say J.D.I. lowered its price earllier this year and changed its specifications for private wood, making it harder for woodlot owners to sell to them…
“The cost for them to produce wood on Crown land in large operations with big, mechanized equipment is reasonably low,” he said. “And that’s what would be their preferred way of acquiring their wood.”"
- See Capital Vol 1: The Labour Process and the Valorization Process. The value of a product is determined by the socially necessary labour time that inheres in the product. “Moreover, the time spent in production counts only in so far as it is socially necessary for the production of a use-value. This has various consequences. First, the labour-power must be functioning under normal conditions. If a self-acting mule is the socially predominant instrument of labour for spinning, it would be impermissible to supply the spinner with a spinning-wheel… otherwise the spinner would spend more time than socially necessary in producing his pound of yarn”. (page 303).
August 19th, 2010 at 9:59 am
From Andrew Clark, President of the NB Woodlot Owners’ Federation:
As president of the New Brunswick Federation of Woodlot Owners, I would like you to publish this letter in response to an advertisement placed in all newspapers by J.D. Irving Ltd.
The advertisement says that private woodlot owners have failed to deliver the projected amount of wood to their mills. I believe the public should know the reasons for this from our point of view.
According to information supplied by York Sunbury Charlotte Forest Products Marketing Board, wood was flowing to JDI mills at a rate of 1,048 tonnes per week prior to a price decrease and pulpwood specification change in May.
The changes made it financially difficult to produce wood for JDI mills, and production fell to 404 tonnes per week.
The South East Forest Products Marketing Board reports that it’s being refused a new contract by JDI even though it successfully completed its last contract.
The reason for this is that the marketing board doesn’t want to produce the details about producers prior to signing a new contract because this detail hasn’t been required by them or any other mill in the province.
Wood producers in the Carleton Victoria Forest Products Marketing Board area are increasing production this year for Twin Rivers Paper Company in response to competitive prices and scaling.
The simple facts are that if JDI wants to purchase more wood, fair prices and scaling methods will bring it more wood to its mills than media grandstanding.
The public should also know that the price for softwood kraft pulp, the product that comes out of JDI pulp mills, according to Paper Age Magazine, has increased from $700 per tonne in 2008 to more than $1,000 per tonne today.
The question has to be asked: does JDI really want to purchase wood from the private woodlot owners or is it creating conditions for private woodlot owners to fail so it can ask for more wood from the Crown lands?