NEWBERG, Oregon (From the Newberg Graphic) -- The final eight hourly employees at the WestRock paper mill in Newberg were terminated this month, meaning there are no more union-represented workers onsite.

Their contract, however, remains in place through September 2017, which presents some uncertainties since there is clearly still work to be done at the facility. Up until last week the remaining maintenance workers were dismantling equipment to be shipped out to other WestRock facilities around the country.

Robb Renne, one of the final mill workers and also president of the local chapter of the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers (AWPPW), estimated there have been four or five semi-truck loads of equipment removed and shipped to a WestRock plant in Dublin, Ga.

Besides the work disassembling the plant there is also routine maintenance that will need to be performed: keeping the lights on in certain areas, maintaining the fire systems and the like.

While the union contract technically covers all the union-represented workers who have been laid off, since the mill is never reopening most of the positions have been eliminated and that work will not be taking place.

But for the maintenance workers who are now terminated, that work will, in all likelihood, need to be completed by somebody. If the union-represented workers are replaced by outside contractors, that may be a problem for the contract.

"At this point we're in a holding pattern, waiting to see where it goes from here," Renne said. "We believe that as long as the contract is in place, that work we would normally perform is still our work."

So they have entered a process known as effects bargaining, which happens when a decision is made by the business that doesn't necessarily trigger mandatory collective bargaining, but has effects on the workforce which do need to be bargained over. A closure of a large facility often triggers this process.

"Under both our labor agreement and the National Labor Relations Board, if we have a labor agreement in place and a plant closes, we have a legal right to bargain the impact of that closure," AWPPW vice president Greg Pallesen said.

He said during the recent bargaining efforts WestRock asked the union to terminate the labor agreement for the mill, which concerned the union representatives, since there are still tasks to be performed, and also because the future plans for the site have not been made entirely clear. For example, if the biomass burning operations were restarted, AWPPW-represented workers would need to be rehired to operate it. But if the contract is terminated, WestRock could hire outside workers.

The last bargaining session took place two weeks ago, with Pallesen citing little progress made.

"This has been a life impacting situation for the employees, so we feel there's a fair way to end this contract," Renne said. "And we haven't reached that point yet."

The first big round of layoffs took place Nov. 20, when the majority of mill workers were terminated from the plant. Another group stayed on through Christmas and another through January as the workforce shrank smaller and smaller.

With the final eight union workers terminated, all that remains is a handful of management positions and the security guards at the facility.

In a recent interview Newberg Mayor Bob Andrews said the future of that site remains unknown, but that the buildings will be removed.

"They are in the process of taking that down to the ground, ultimately," he said.