REGINA -- According to Evraz North America, 500 layoff notices have been posted for employees in the Regina Evraz Steel plant’s Tubular Division.
A layoff notice posted to the United Steelworkers Local 5890 website Tuesday says the employees will be “laid off indefinitely effective end of shift Dec. 17, 2020.”
The union said in an earlier post Evraz had issued a “Displacement Memo” last month for the Tubular Division, citing economic conditions as the reason for the workforce reduction.
In an email to CTV News Regina, Evraz said Wednesday's notice follows one issued on Nov. 13.
"These staffing adjustments that began in November and are continuing in December are matching the size of our workforce with the demand for production of certain tubular product," a representative for Evraz said. "Overall, it has been a challenging 2020 for our oil & gas related products given the current economic conditions and the status of the Canadian energy industry, a primary customer."
Evraz said it has seen layoffs throughout the year, including in Alberta due to silimar economic hardships.
“They haven’t had drastic layoffs like this in the tubular division, where it’s drastic like this, probably for at least 10 years,” President of USW 5890 Mike Day said. “We still expect to have less than 100 members working in the tubular division where last year at this time we were roughly around 700.”
Day said he does not foresee membership in the tubular division returning to the same level.
“Just where the oil and gas sector is right now, I don’t see the projects being there,” he said.
Day said there are currently several bids in the United States for steel projects but he’s not confident EVRAZ will win those contracts.
“We’re going to work with them in any way that we can to support not only them but to support the opportunities that they may have to get back to work, not just on a short term basis but hopefully on a much longer term basis,” Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said.
NDP leader Ryan Meili said the province should have pushed harder to have Evraz produce steel for a TC Energy project in Alberta and a project for SaskEnergy.
"We've got two projects right there that we know could have been done and could be built with Evraz steel right now. But yes we do know that the economy is struggling and we need a government that is going to step up and support people. I hope that that rapid response team will be more than just a few phone calls, which is what we've seen in the past" NDP Leader Ryan Meili said.
