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Panelists slam big business, mill closures
Group advocates federal compensation
By YVONNE BEASLEY
Of the Emerald
In 1977, citizens of the tiny Oregon community of
Westfir, near Oakridge, felt the pangs of being a
company town. The Hines lumber mill, a major em
ployer of Westfir residents, shut its doors to hundreds
of workers.
The Hines mill closure and its aftermath are an
example of the power large corporations have on
many small American towns. As part of the Eugene
observance of national "Big Business Day,” a seven
member panel met last week in Harris Hall to discuss
plant closures, using Westfir as a typical example of
big-business tactics.
A film about the Hines mill closure, "Company
Town," was presented by one of its creators, Eugene
filmmaker Chris Jensen. The half-hour documentary
told the story of Westfir and of the Westfir Workers’
Association.
The association, consisting of Hines millworkers
who didn’t want to lose their jobs when the mill closed,
tried to buy the mill from Hines. After months of
uncertain negotiations with Hines, the workers were
told they could not buy the mill.
An international corporation, the Mitchell-Black
etor company, later purchased the Hines mill and
reopened it at half capacity. Some displaced workers
got jobs at the area’s other mill, Pope and Talbot;
many moved; others had to rely on federal assistance
programs.
A plant closure is a complex event. Often, unem
ployment and pension benefits are not available after
a plant closes — the company just folds up and moves
away, taking its money along. Sometimes, the com
pany has provided health services and housing as well
as jobs; those disappear as well.
“Corporate America has a stranglehold on the
American economy,” said panel member Jim McCor
mick, an officer of the retail clerks' local union. He
said a plant closure, often the result of "a callous
decision on the part of some corporate executive,"
can wreak havoc on a town.
The "ripple effect” takes over after a plant clo
sure, McCormick said. The closure causes economic
ripples in all areas of a small town — laid-off workers
cannot afford to buy as much as they did before; many
move
The town’s merchants suffer a drop in business,
sometimes having to shut down their own stores,
McCormick said, thereby creating even more unem
ployment until a community is economically devas
tated
A town's tax base suffers when a large plant or
mill shuts down — all the property and business taxes
the company paid just dry up, McCormick said.
Another problem is the drain on the town’s allocation
for food stamp and federal aid programs.
Panel members criticized big business’ control of
small-town economies for nearly three hours as each
panel member decried the tax breaks, unfair stock
market control and monopolizing tactics available to
national conglomerates.
Many small plants actually make profits, said
David Lerman of the University's Labor Education and
Research Center, but the profits aren't big enough for
the parent company, so the plant is shut down.
Legislation is pending in Congress to begin
reforms in plant-closure techniques, McCormick said.
The legislation contains provisions for notifying
Photo by Tom Detzel
Daniel Pope, University history professor, spoke as
part of a Big Business Day panel on mill and plant
closures.
workers in advance of a plant closure; federal money
for workers to buy the plant as a co-op if they wish; an
impact report for the surrounding community and
compensation for lost wages, new job training, health
services and community tax loss; most to be paid by
the company.
But all the legislative lobbying in the world won’t
heal Westfir's present wounds. The Pope and Talbot
mill recently shut down, and plant managers expect
the mill to remain closed for about six months. In the
meantime, hundreds of Oakridge and Westfir re
sidents are unemployed.
“This is the seventh recession since World War
II,” said Ken Collins, panel member and second-gen
eration laborer from Oakridge. "It’s obvious thaf
something’s wrong. It’s going to be up to us to do
something about it."
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dBS
Speaker says public ownership
could help allay mill closures
By LARRY SUTCLIFFE
Of the Emerald
Every effort should be made
to keep the wood products in
dustry operating, said Jerry
Lembcke in a Saturday work
shop on mill closures.
Lembcke, a Portland repre
sentative from the newly formed
Coalition to Save Jobs, ad
dressed a small crowd at the
University Law School as part of
a conference on worker sur
vival, sponsored by the Eugene
Chapter of the National Lawyers
Guild.
Legislation is needed to allow
a takeover of closed mills for
public use, Lembcke said.
“Management of the mills
should become public proper
ty,” he said. “This allows people
to have more of an active role in
management while assuring the
plant will remain solvent.
"We need county- or mun
icipally-owned industry (such as
EWEB),” Lembcke said. "The
profits stay in the community
and strengthen the community.
Worker-owned industry must
still buy its raw products from
private industry, forcing them to
keep up with a very competitive
market, and it has been shown
in the past that most worker
owned plants don't have the
capital to remain competitive.”
Federally owned plants are
also ineffective, Lembcke said,
because they take the profits
out of the community and re
place private bureaucracy with
federal bureaucracy.
Because Lane County has
publicly owned timber and en
ergy, a historic opportunity ex
ists to develop a municipally
owned wood products industry
— a first for the nation, Lembcke
said
Public ownership would keep
the Northwest competitive in the
face of a changing wood
products economy, Lembcke
said. Georgia Pacific is planning
to move its central office to At
lanta, Georgia, and it's no
secret that there’s a direct link
between foreign politics and
plant closures, he added.
"When a plant closes in
Oregon, you can be sure one is
opening in a Third World
country. The multi-nationals are
killing our unions with their
overseas policies. A regime
supported by U S. military inter
vention is usually pro-multina
tional because it benefits from
the money generated by the
company, and since labor is
cheap and unions are nonexis
tant, the large multi-nationals
are eager to move in.”
By publicly buying the plants
abandoned by the large wood
products firms, the wood indus
tries’ grip on the Northwest
economy can be cut, Lembcke
said.
“By controlling the factors of
production, the energy and the
timber — as well as the mills —
we keep the profits in the com
munity, which strengthens the
community.
"This will keep us competitive
in the world market.”
David Jennings
The Progresive Alternative
For
Eugene
City Council
“David Jennings, a longterm MORTAL ENEMY of
ARCHIE WEINSTEIN and his rip-off development
interests, provided us much-needed information from
his 1974 ANTI-WEINSTEIN files.”
LEWIS WARD
CITIZENS COOPERATING TO
RECALL WEINSTEIN
Paid: David Jennings for City Councilor, Kent Anderson, Treasurer. 744 W. Park, Eugene, OR 97401.