This series documents the company's labour relations from 1945 to 1990, providing valuable information for the study of labour relations from the management side for an important sector of the post-war Canadian economy. The records are very useful for studying the cooperation between the company and its pulp and paper unions. Because the QUNO operated as subsidiary of The Tribune Company, it did not sell the paper it produced on the open market. Thus while marginal costs were always a concern, it had more leeway when negotiating labour contracts than paper companies that sold on the open market. From the opening of the Thorold mill in 1913 until the early 1960s, the QUNO had labour peace. For the agreements between the company and its various unions between 1947 and 1992, see vol. 25367 files 10-15 to vol. 25369 file 2, and vol. 25375 file 1 to vol. 25377 file 7.
The series contains comparative wage data on for the pulp and paper industry in central and eastern Canada during the post-1945 period in vol. 25357 files 1-4. In the late 1940s through the early 1950s the industry attempted to present a united front to labour. However, the records show that it was not always possible because the various paper companies had different cost structures. Union-management rapport at the company began to break down in the late 1950s. The immediate cause was the difficulty in classifying a group of employees who had originally been part of the Papermakers Union. The jobs these men held was designated "Boss Machine Tenders". The union demanded that they be considered employees, not management because they actually ran the paper making machinery. The company, however, considered that they were management because they supervised other employees. The dispute dragged on for more than a decade, see vol. 25364 files 12-16.
Technical and architectural drawings are related to labour negotiations and they were extracted from correspondence files. The provenance of each drawings is inscribed on the large folder.
