PORT ANGELES — Peninsula Plywood is cutting pay by 10 percent for its hourly workers, a move the company’s president said is needed to fill orders.
The cut affects 110 employees and will start next pay period.
PenPly President Josh Renshaw said the cuts are intended to be temporary and will be reviewed after 90 days. Management took the same cut in November, he said.
Renshaw said the mill made the cuts in order to have enough money to buy the raw materials needed to meet orders, which he added are on an upswing after dropping last year when a fire destroyed the control room for its two boilers.
“We have to be able to shelve the orders,” he said.
“It costs money to grow. And if we don’t grow, we won’t be stable.”
The pay cut will save the mill $25,000 a month, Renshaw said.
The average employee makes $16 an hour, he said.
Renshaw said the mill attempted to get a loan to cover the costs but couldn’t. He attributed that to a tight credit market.
The mill is attempting to get additional orders for plywood in Japan as the country recovers from the large earthquake in March, Renshaw said.
The mill reopened under the ownership of Peninsula Plywood Group LLC in March 2010.
It was hit by bad luck two months later when a fire destroyed the control room for its two boilers.
It furloughed 92 employees for a week in August and laid off 35 workers in October.
This year, five tax warrants have been filed against the company.
A warrant for $41,905 in unpaid unemployment insurance taxes was filed Jan. 11.
Two separate warrants totalling $220,569 for unpaid industrial insurance taxes were filed Jan. 13.
A warrant for $13,689 in unpaid unemployment insurance taxes was filed March 8.
Another tax warrant for unpaid industrial insurance taxes totalling $63,786 was filed March 25.
It’s unclear whether the warrants overlapped or if they have been paid.
Renshaw could not be reached for comment on the owed taxes.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
