Opal has welcomed back its Maryvale Mill production team members as of Sunday 16 February, after a four-week lockdown.
This announcement comes as the company has reached an in-principle agreement with its production team staff and the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) for a new enterprise agreement at the Maryvale Mill.
The legal lockout of its Maryvale Mill production team happened in late January, when its then existing production agreement expired at the end of December 2024.
The company said the terms and conditions of that agreement was appropriate many years ago in previous enterprise agreements and were not relevant to the mill’s current operations anymore.
Opal’s new agreement now includes fair and reasonable changes to its operations and embodies these in a simpler, fair and competitive way.
Opal started facing supply challenges for its Maryvale Mill towards the end of 2023, when the VicForests situation resulted in the end of wood supply, stopping the mill from manufacturing white pulp and paper at its site.
It then decommissioned its Paper Machine 5 (M5), which previously made copy paper including Reflex, and Paper Machine 2 (M2), only running three of its paper making machines and directing its focus to creating brown paper bags.
The move caused its parent company Nippon Paper a total of 6.1 billion yen ($63.9 million) in losses and a dip of almost half of its production volumes.
“Opal negotiated in good faith for an Enterprise Agreement that is fair and appropriate to the Mill’s current operations, which were forced to change significantly due to the sudden end of wood supply from Victorian Government owned VicForests,” the company said, in a statement.
“Opal is focussed on the future of the Mill, which remains an important asset for our growth as a major manufacturer of quality cardboard packaging products in a competitive market.”
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