‘Quite a blow to everyone’: N.B. Agropur staff speak out after news of facility closure

Workers from a Sussex, N.B., dairy facility that is set to close are speaking out.

Shane Smith, who has worked at the Sussex, N.B., area Agropur for 24 years, says morale at the plant is at an all-time low following the recent news that the site will cease operations by the end of 2028.

The closure will result in 60 job losses.

“It was quite a blow to everyone,” says Smith, the site shop steward. “It was something I never would imagine in my entire dreams that something like this would happen, and everybody’s feeling it.”

For the first time since the news was made public, staff from the plant had the opportunity to speak with leaders from their Unifor local union to learn more about what comes next for them. The closed-door meeting was held at the All Seasons Inn in Sussex.

Jennifer Murray, Atlantic regional director for Unifor, led the meeting. She says since the news of the pending plant closure, the union has requested meetings with all levels of government to share their concerns and see if there are any viable options for saving the site.

“We have to find ways and means to sit with our government and come up with a plan for this workplace,” Murray says. “Because if our government is able to invest in one workplace, I am certain that we can talk about investment in another.”

The provincial government gave $2.4 million to Agropur in a non-repayable contribution to help modernize its plant in Miramichi.

Both Murray and Smith say when that news came out last February, neither thought it would have any impact on the Sussex location. Smith called it “ridiculous” and doesn’t understand how that detail was missed by the province when handing out the money.

Smith is hopeful the plant can find some way to stay open, calling his fellow 59 staff members who work at the plant “a second family.”

“We are all pretty close,” Smith says. “We have a top-notch facility and a top-notch workforce so there’s no need of this.”

Murray says at this time the company has not officially laid off anyone working at the Sussex-area location. They have also not been told if any of the 60 employees will receive any of the 15 new jobs opening in Miramichi as a result of those upgrades.

But even if he is offered a job, Smith says the decision isn’t so simple.

“As far as relocating with the housing crisis, who wants to sell their home here and try and find a home up there?” says Smith. “Everything was going well, this was a big shocker, and we had no clue this was going to happen.”

Despite government and Agropur claims, Murray believes there is a path to keeping the Sussex site in operation but will involve some “outside of the box” thinking.

“To close the door and just say, you know, wash your hands and say that it’s not possible, until we exhaust every single route possible at this point I don’t think we are ready to go there.

“Our rural communities really do rely on these good paying jobs, and just transitioning work elsewhere, uprooting families and disrupting sort of what has been created here in Sussex is not always the answer.”

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