Ontario Power Generation held a meeting with employees this morning (Monday) and says a restructuring of Central Operations in North Bay means 40 jobs are leaving.

Chief Operating Officer Renewable Generating Al Reid says they’re amalgamating five regions of operation into four.

He says there are currently 60 people working for OPG in North Bay.

“Between 20 and 22 jobs will remain in North Bay, that’s our trades and maintenance staff that look after the stations and manage the water across the region.  40 staff will be moved to other locations, including Timmins,” he says.

Reid says about half of those staff involve the control centre, with the operations control centre, in it’s entirety, moving to Timmins.

As for the reason why, he says it’s all about their ongoing efforts to manage costs for the ratepayers of Ontario, pointing out the restructuring will save OPG about $3-million dollars a year,

He also says that’s a conservative estimate.

When it comes to the information being leaked to the community prior to the employee meeting, Reid says it’s a concern.

“We really can’t control the rumour mill, we were committed to informing our employees first and letting them know what their future looks like with the company,” he said.

He says all of the employees have employment guarantee, but they don’t have employment guarantee by location.

With the prospect of a fight from community leaders over the job losses, Reid was asked if there’s any chance this decision could be reversed.

“We’re committed to make this change,” he said.

In terms of timelines, the restructuring could take upwards of a year depending on the logistics of moving a control room and negotiations with representative officials.

 

The Chamber of Commerce says there’s more than just 40 jobs leaving with the Ontario Power Generation announcement this week.

Treasurer Jake Lacourse says it’s 40 families too.

Plus, the local housing market will be impacted.

Lacourse believes there’s an opportunity to save the jobs before they’re gone, like the proposed divestiture at Ontario Northland that was stopped.

He also points out when worked leaked last week about the jobs leaving, they attempted to find out if those rumours were true but they couldn’t get confirmation until Monday.

OPG says it was important to speak directly to the employees first.