Unionizing?

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Seems to me there was a logger's union once but I forget what it was called. I think it sort of lost steam following the layoff after the big salvage operations around Mt St Helens. That was also sort of the end of "company loggers" altogether. I remember my dad talking about it at the time but I was pretty young and didn't pay a lot of attention. He worked for the research center in Centralia, so was kind of removed from the Operations folks.
 
I tell ya what would be nice is something similar to the "crop insurance" farmers get from the govt. We have a bad year and we're sol and usually a kick in the pants for running a little heavy or something
 
Who's employee would you be? Company owners, managers, etc can't be in the union. I'm going to assume you operate like me. A sole proprietor. If that's the case, no union for you. As for unions in general, I'm not inclined to pay dues for the right to work. I'm happy negotiating my own contracts.
 
Seems to me there was a logger's union once but I forget what it was called. I think it sort of lost steam following the layoff after the big salvage operations around Mt St Helens. That was also sort of the end of "company loggers" altogether. I remember my dad talking about it at the time but I was pretty young and didn't pay a lot of attention. He worked for the research center in Centralia, so was kind of removed from the Operations folks.

Yes. It was when the mills and big land owners had their own logging crews. PLS in Randle/Packwood had logging crews which were union as did Champion in the same area. It began to end in that area in the late 1980s when Champion sold their mill and lands. PLS did later. The mills laid everybody off for the amount of time it took to end the unions, and then reopened with less benefits available and logging was contracted out. I think the fallers were always contracted out--it was the crews and truckers who were union.

About that time, the owl stuff hit the fan and the bad times began. Champion's local crew had a yarder break through a bridge and it ended up in the Cowlitz River and right after that they canned their logging crews and sold out. I think the yarder/bridge affair might have been more of a coincidence than a cause.

I'm thinking Weyco used to be the same. Rumor had it (in the 1980s) that they were going to log off all their land around Morton and that would be it until the next crop of trees matured. We used to have to go to work in that area and it could get exciting even with a CB in the pickup. 100 loads a day were coming out on one road.

There were always the gypo loggers though. They would hope for that One Sale that would make them rich. That did happen once in a while.

Oh, and some of the mills were sold to non-timber people. The Morton Champion mill was sold to a group of lawyers who were investing. They ran it for a brief time then it was closed and torn down. The same was true for other mills--they were torn down and machinery sold off. There was no local connection for the new investor owners. It was about the time that greed became very popular.
 
Unions have done a lot for workers. Not all great workers are great negotiators.

Government sure isn't gonna do it for ya. They tend to side with the big donors not their constituents.

Labor laws are seldom enforced. I wonder why?
 
Yes. It was when the mills and big land owners had their own logging crews. PLS in Randle/Packwood had logging crews which were union as did Champion in the same area. It began to end in that area in the late 1980s when Champion sold their mill and lands. PLS did later. The mills laid everybody off for the amount of time it took to end the unions, and then reopened with less benefits available and logging was contracted out. I think the fallers were always contracted out--it was the crews and truckers who were union.

About that time, the owl stuff hit the fan and the bad times began. Champion's local crew had a yarder break through a bridge and it ended up in the Cowlitz River and right after that they canned their logging crews and sold out. I think the yarder/bridge affair might have been more of a coincidence than a cause.

I'm thinking Weyco used to be the same. Rumor had it (in the 1980s) that they were going to log off all their land around Morton and that would be it until the next crop of trees matured. We used to have to go to work in that area and it could get exciting even with a CB in the pickup. 100 loads a day were coming out on one road.

There were always the gypo loggers though. They would hope for that One Sale that would make them rich. That did happen once in a while.

Oh, and some of the mills were sold to non-timber people. The Morton Champion mill was sold to a group of lawyers who were investing. They ran it for a brief time then it was closed and torn down. The same was true for other mills--they were torn down and machinery sold off. There was no local connection for the new investor owners. It was about the time that greed became very popular.

Seems like thats how things went all over the state, I was still too young to be wholly part of it, But I remember the strikes, and the mills closing, then the Owl thing happened and that was the coffin nail for most of the smaller mills.

I feel like its coming around again though, there are a bunch of the "portable" band mill folks around here that are quickly becoming more permanent then portable.

Seems to be a bunch more gyppos around too...

Unions have done a lot for workers. Not all great workers are great negotiators.

Government sure isn't gonna do it for ya. They tend to side with the big donors not their constituents.

Labor laws are seldom enforced. I wonder why?

I agree unions had their place, but should grown adults rely on an indifferent 3rd party to negotiate something as little as a raise? If thats the case humans are in far more trouble then I thought.

Labor laws are always enforced, just not always reported.

For anyone wondering, I am not looking at hiring into a union, just curious.
 
Wrote a long post but deleted it. No need to derail.

Will try a labor law topic another day.
 
Unions as they were mid-20th century are pretty obviously a thing of the past. Still, the worker needs representation. I suspect that a new form of collective bargaining will arise in the very near future. Folks won't take to being held down by the 1% forever. Or, rather, I hope they won't.
 
Unions as they were mid-20th century are pretty obviously a thing of the past. Still, the worker needs representation. I suspect that a new form of collective bargaining will arise in the very near future. Folks won't take to being held down by the 1% forever. Or, rather, I hope they won't.

Think perhaps the power of an informed and intelligent vote could have something to do with crippling the 1%
 
Think perhaps the power of an informed and intelligent vote could have something to do with crippling the 1%

I am pessimistic about that ever happening. Folks are too lazy to do fact checking and research. It's much easier and more convenient to believe what a meme tells you or to claim something is not true if you do not agree, or it might be painful to know the truth. Apparently Civics is no longer a required class in high school. Higher education is made out to be evil, and well, we know the rest.

The race to the bottom will continue, with folks unwilling to see that they are working/voting against themselves.
 
People are gullible, A clean cut man in a suit, can steal their grandma's house and leave them feeling good about it. A few hard to comprehend words like "fiscal" "responsibility" "net growth" and folks be wetting their pants to do what ever they say.

Hence never trust a man in a suit.

Now I ain't never been to no higher learnin place, (unless you count playing punk rock on a college campus?) So I don't really understand the value of a college edumacation.

But my many friends that have gone, certainly make better life decisions than I do, well most of em...

I do think that there needs to be a more positive view on going to a trade school, or learning a trade on the job, there almost seems to be a classism about working with ones hands? But then many who do manual labor are ignorant asses so?
 
Yup, we need to respect folks who do manual labor also. We shouldn't put either down. I'm just alarmed at the trend going to make colleges only teach what the job market needs. Public colleges, that is. If one is passionate about art history, one should be able to study it.

I'm the product of a community college, plus a 10 week forest engineering course. I guess that's kind of a trade school. The trade schools need to get the word out. I only hear about the unscrupulous ones.
 
I'm also a community college graduate, as well as a state college graduate, as well as a military guy. Turns out the military training was the most useful, as it was mostly hands-on "trade school" stuff, except all the damn physics. If I'd known that when I was 18, I'd have gone to a trade school in the first place and not wasted all that time and money. But, of course, there's a million kinds of pressure to pursue academia. I stopped just short of applying for grad school because I was sick and tired of academia and wanted to get something DONE for once instead of farting around with peer review. That's not to say that I don't value the scientific method and the peer review process -- on the contrary, I believe that's how we gain and maintain confidence in our decisions regarding matters of nature. Rather, I just got tired of participating. I'd much rather have dirt under my fingernails than a tie around my neck.
 
I went to college, I have a bachelors degree in business management with a minor in computer science. My education was a byproduct of playing football, but earned my education nonetheless. I have always worked labor jobs, always loved getting dirty and doing the work, so when I got a job using my degree, I quickly found out that it wasn't the kind of thing I wanted to spend my life doing. So I found a good job that I get to do the physical work I like, getting dirty and being happy.

As for unions, I'm not a fan. I've been on jobs where the general contractor is a union company. I've seen their operator blow a hose on the hoe, which stopped 3 haul trucks and a water truck for 2 1/2 hours while they wait for the machanic to come out and change the hose for them. All the while getting paid $38 an hour to stand around wasting time. I asked the operator why he didn't change it himself, said it wasn't his job. Didn't make sense to me to have 5 guys standing when anyone of them could have changed the hose in half an hour.

But that's just my take on it, and one reason I get a sour taste when it comes to unions.
 
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