Thirty-five years later, Fessenden is still working at the paper recycler in the Midway, now owned by the Rock-Tenn Company of Norcross, Ga. The job Fessenden stumbled upon as a 22-year-old enabled him to buy a home and raise a family, and sometime within the next five years, he hopes to retire.

Fessenden knows family-supporting manufacturing jobs like his are becoming increasingly rare in today\'s post-NAFTA economy. That\'s why he and the 500 other workers at Rock-Tenn\'s St. Paul plant hope the company, the City Council and community stakeholders can reach agreement on a fuel source that will keep the state\'s largest paper recycler open for years to come.

"Don\'t let it get out to the company, but it\'s always been a great place to work," Fessenden said of the Midway plant. "You\'ve got decent benefits. We give them a good day\'s work, but we get a fair wage for it. I give them eight for eight and they give me eight.

"How many places are you going to find around here that you can say that about? Pretty soon it will be in China, you know?"

At an energy crossroads
Rock-Tenn\'s shaky footing in St. Paul is the unintended consequence of a string of energy-related policy decisions that culminated early on a Saturday morning last month, when Xcel Energy imploded the smokestack of its old High Bridge power plant on Shepard Road.

For nearly two decades, the High Bridge plant fueled Rock-Tenn\'s operation, piping steam energy from the coal-fired plant to the Midway. Rock-Tenn used the thermal energy – enough steam annually to heat more than 20,000 Minnesota homes – in the intensive drying process necessary for recycling paper.

But in August 2007, as part of the Metropolitan Emissions Reduction Plan, the High Bridge plant shut down in favor of a "peaking" natural gas facility, which will operate only on days when the area\'s energy demand is at its highest. That\'s good news for the Twin Cities\' air quality, but bad news for Rock-Tenn, which fired up its on-site, 1950s-era oil and natural gas boilers after the High Bridge plant shut down.

The switch has increased Rock-Tenn\'s energy bill by as much as $1 million per month, and the company has said it does not consider the on-site boilers a long-term energy solution.

Bob Ryan, a machinist with 27 years of experience working at the Midway plant, called Rock-Tenn workers "the victims of good public policy."

"The coal fired power plant is gone, and we\'re the brunt of it," Ryan said. "We\'re optimistic that we will come up with a new form of energy to use, but at the same time, it\'s at the back of everyone\'s mind. With the housing market the way it is, the job market – you\'re just not going to find (this job) anywhere else."

Finding solutions
The processes of identifying a clean, cost-effective and long-term fuel source that can keep Rock-Tenn open in St. Paul began last year, when the Legislature provided funding for a community panel charged with studying renewable energy solutions for the paper recycler.

Managed by the St. Paul Port Authority and made up of representatives of area district councils, labor unions, business interests and environmental experts, the Rock-Tenn Community Advisory Panel (RCAP) convened last August, and it has narrowed the options down to several biomass sources, including energy crops like switch grass, agricultural or manufacturing residues and city wastes.

Now, the panel is working with the Port Authority and area district councils on a recommendation – or recommendations – to the city council, scheduled for this fall. Environmental review of a proposed new facility could begin before the end of the year.

Some residents in the neighborhoods surrounding the Rock-Tenn plant, concerned about air quality and public health, have organized resistance to a biomass energy solution. Their "Neighbors Against the Burner" signs are sprinkled throughout Merriam Park, Hamline Midway and St. Anthony.

Rock-Tenn workers, who typically work seven-day shifts, say they understand the neighbors\' fears and are equally, if not more concerned about air quality around the new power plant. "We want to be able to go home and not have any adverse effects from that air," mill shipper Mike Barstad said. "We have families, we have kids. We have to deal with (air quality) also."

Fessenden\'s daughter lives in the nearby community of Lauderdale, downwind from the Rock-Tenn plant. "I\'ve lived there," he said. "I\'d live there again.

"We had some guy from (Neighbors Against the Burner) who came in and talked about nanoparticles and (said) that we were poisoning the children. He\'s got all those people pretty scared, but he didn\'t scare me."

Healthy, family-supporting jobs
What does scare Rock-Tenn workers like Fessenden, Ryan and Barstad is a St. Paul void of the jobs that have made the middle-class lifestyle accessible to families like theirs.

Barstad, recently married, is expecting a child with his new wife. "I need the job, I need the benefits, I need the income," he said. "I want to support a family, and there\'s not a lot of jobs out there that are going to give me the kind of benefits that I have working at Rock-Tenn that are available to me if this place isn\'t there."

For Ryan, meanwhile, working at Rock-Tenn is a family tradition that spans four generations. "At one time there were more Ryans than rats there," he said. Rock-Tenn is even where Ryan met his wife. "She was a single mother then, and she raised her son – my step-son – on her wages there. And she did fine. There (were) no handouts from the state. You can\'t say that with a lot of companies.

"You can put a million Home Depots and Targets and Wal-Marts and everything else up, but those people are dependent on the state because they don\'t have the benefit package we have. Our (union) contracts are good, and they allow us to sustain family living as it should be."

Michael Moore edits The Union Advocate, the official publication of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation. Visit the federation\'s website, www.stpaulunions.org  

View video interviews with Rock-Tenn workers: