Workers hit hard by unexpected closing of mill paper mill
By A. M. Kelley
Superior Catholic Herald
SUPERIOR -- Many parishioners in Fr. Jim Jackson's three parishes, St. Anthony de Padua, Park Falls; Immaculate Conception, Butternut; and St. Francis of Assisi, Fifield lost jobs when SMART Papers LLC closed permanently in March.
Some of the newly unemployed have working spouses who are scrambling to pick up the slack. Some do not. People are gearing down and spending less. Some have already left the Park Falls area and found jobs elsewhere. Others don't want to leave their homes and are waiting it out, hoping the mill, which has been in operation for more than 100 years, will be purchased and reopened by another company
"Right now there's a lot of good rumors flying around town (about buyers)," Jackson said. "We're positive. We're praying and holding our fingers. It is scary time."
Geraldine Schmidt, a St. Anthony parishioner, said two of her nieces are affected by the mill closure.
"At first people didn't think it would be permanent, but now I think people are beginning to realize what a pickle we're in," she said.
One of Schmidt's nieces is a nurse whose husband worked for SMART Papers.
"He was lucky," she said. "He got a DNR job right away, trapping, until fall."
But the other niece and her husband, Robin, 39, and Randy Wirsing, 49, aren't so lucky. She had almost 16 years in at SMART Papers and he had 31 when the layoffs occurred.
"It's very devastating," Robin Wirsing said. "It hurt everybody. (SMART Papers) have really done the town wrong. We're not quite sure what we're going to do."
The layoffs occurred suddenly without notice. The mill, whose headquarters is in Ohio, announced the closure on March 17, closed the doors on March 18 and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy a few days later. Medical coverage for its 310 employees was terminated immediately.
"Insurance is a big concern," Jackson said. "A lot of people are worrying about high cost or not having it."
One option, COBRA insurance, which must be offered by most employers to terminated employees, is cost-prohibitive to the Wirsings.
"It would cost $957 a month for the two of us," Robin Wirsing said. "I want to find a job to get medical insurance. I don't care what wages are, as long as I can get medical insurance."
The Wirsings do not want to leave the area.
"Our family's here," she said, "our friends, our home. We're going to hang in."
Like many in the Park Falls area, the couple entertains the possibility that the mill will eventually reopen. And if it doesn't they are still determined to find work.
"One door closes and another opens," she said. "That's what you hope is going to happen. There's a living out there, you just have to find it."
In the meantime they keep themselves occupied, catch up on household chores and help a friend with spring-cleaning.
"It keeps us busy," she said. "If you just sit around and think it can just knock you for a loop."
Another person to lose a mill job was Gary Zoesch. He had 32 years in the business and has just celebrated his 61st birthday.
"They decided to shut down and they were down. What do you do?" said his wife, Mary Zoesch, the parish secretary.
Because of his age, the couple's predicament differs from that of younger couples.
"I only have a year to go to retirement," Gary Zoesch said. "I think we could make it. But I don't know what will happen to this town. People are starting to move already."
There are difficult decisions in store for many.
"The young people who just bought houses they're the ones really hurting," he said. "They can't pay their bills. They need the money so they got jobs out of town."
As for health insurance, Zoesch was able to get coverage through the parish, his wife's employer.
The economic situation is uncertain for everyone in Park Falls and the surrounding communities, not just the idled employees of the paper mill.
"If 75 percent of the people move out of the area, what are we going to have?" Mary Zoesch said. "It's a trickle-down effect. The whole town will be affected." The couple's 26-year-old son was not employed at the mills, but as a mechanic in Park Falls he too has felt the pinch of the recent shutdown.
"(He) said they can tell the difference already," Gary Zoesch said. "(He) said people can't afford to get their cars fixed."
Victims of the trickle-down effect have not yet included St. Anthony of Padua School, which has 124 students this school year, grades preK-8, according to principal Brent Balsavich.
While he concedes that, community-wise, everyone is hurting, he's optimistic about the future of the school.
"When people sent in their pre-enrollment forms, three days after the mill closed, a few said, 'If we're in town we'll be there. If we have jobs, we'll be there,'" Balsavich said. "We have a parish and a community that supports this school. The school will be here. There's no way it's going to close."
Jackson echoed this. "We'll do everything we can to keep the school open," he said.
St. Anthony parishioners, Frank and Katie Kovarik, are both jobless after 28 years at the mill for him and 18 for her. They have a 6-year-old daughter who attends the parish's school and they've suddenly found themselves with no medical insurance and can't afford the $800-a-month price tag on a COBRA policy.
"Everybody's in the same boat," said Frank Kovarik, 46, whose two brothers also lost SMART Paper jobs.
Born and raised in the area, the Kovariks want to stay. They're hoping to learn new job skills through the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development which has offered to help re-train displaced workers. But even with new job skills, will there be jobs in Park Falls?
"That's the scary part, " Kovarik said. "We don't know. We go from day to day and we keep praying."
Chris and Lisa Schienebeck have five children, ages 4 through 15. Chris Schienebeck did not work for SMART Papers. He was employed by Pfizer Specialty Minerals Inc., which made products for the mill. When the mill closed, Schienebeck lost his job. The couple applied for BadgerCare for their children, a Wisconsin medical program for uninsured families, but did not qualify because Schienebeck received a month of severance pay and this put them over the income guidelines.
He's found another job with Weather Shield Mfg., a Park Falls maker of doors and windows.
"He's losing more than $5 an hour," Lisa Schienebeck. "But I guess we're very lucky even with the cut in pay."
The rumor mill in Park Falls is going full tilt and there's much speculation about potential buyers for the idled mill.
"We hear there are people looking to buy it," Gary Zoesch said. "By the end of the month -- maybe. We've heard Johnson Timbers (Johnson Timber of Hayward), Wrigley Spearmint Gum (Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company of Illinois). There are lots of rumors. I hope they're true."
According to Balsavich, there's supposed to be a "big announcement" on May 10.
"But nobody knows for sure," he said.
The one thing everybody knows for sure is that the future of life in this pretty little town on the Flambeau River is uncertain.
© Superior Catholic Herald, 2006