For many years it even owned the property that workers built their homes on. For most of this century the company was looked on by residents as part of an extended family. That was a different era, when the workers were needed as much as the wood,'' said Millinocket Town Manager James Kotredes. Automation and cuts in production have lessened the need for workers. The company no longer recruits at high schools or helps build homes.
Summer jobs are scarce.
Great Northern, residents say, is no longer considered a member of the family. They attribute much of that to the job cuts. Since the mid-1980s, new technology was the driving force behind a reduction of about 45 percent in the work force of the East Millinocket plant, which now has about 500 workers. Down the road at a sister plant in Millinocket, technology played a smaller role in job cuts. Reduced production was largely behind the loss of half the work force there, according to the company.