700 Local Weyerhaeuser Workers Would Be Hit If Strike Is Called
Published 2:35 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008
More than 700 local wood and sawmill workers
were still unsure of their fate early this week, with the
chance of a strike still hanging over their heads.
Late Monday night, a union official involved in
contract negotiations announced that a tentative
agreement had been reached.
But Tuesday morning, a local union offical said
that no settlement had been reached.
“There’s an agreement on the table, but it’s a
proposal, “said Wayne Hamodey, business
manager/financial secretary/treasurer of Lumber and Sawmill
Workers Local 1845. “There’s still a potential we could go
on strike tomorrow.” Seven major wood products firms
on the West Coast are bargaining together with unions
representing about 21,000 workers from Washington,
Oregon, California and Montana, said Carol Eckert,
spokeswoman for the Western States Wood Products
Employers Association.
The employer bargaining consortium includes
Boise Cascade, Champion International, Crown,
Zellerbach, Georgia Pacific, Publishers Paper, Simpson Timber
and Weyerhaeuser.
Ms. Eckert explained that the employer
bargaining group was formed by 10 firms in 1980 to negotiate
with the union groups. That contract expired May 31, so
the workers will remain under terms of that agreement
until a new pact is signed.
Local workers voted last month to support the
negotiators if they call for a strike, Hamodey said. About
94 percent supported this motion.
If a strike is called, “It would shut the whole
works down” at Weyerhaeuser’s Snoqualmie mill,
Hamodey explained, hitting about 700 workers.
Workers are seeking a one-year contract, while
employers favor a three-year pact, he said. Workers
have proposed a 7 percent wage increase for one year,
while employers are offering no increase for 18 months, a
2 percent hike starting December 1984, and 3
percent more starting June 1985.
“That’s the biggest issue right now, Hamodey said.
As for health and welfare benefits, Hamodey explained that the workers want a 45 cent per hour
increase over the first year, “to keep our benefits.”
The rate is presently $1.10 per hour, and Hamodey
commented that the workers need about $1.55 this
coming year to keep the benefits. By contrast, the
employers are offering a 5 cent increase the first year and 7.5
cent increases the following two years.
Other sticky issues have been pensions and
subcontracting. Hamodey said that the workers are asking
for an improved pension system, which the employers
will not discuss.
The unions are trying to limit and regulate the
hiring of subcontractors, Hamodey stated, which cost
less to the employers and takes away union jobs.
“We call them gyppos,” he said. “They run on a
shoe-string, “often without the safety requirements
needed for union workers.
An example is truck drivers. Hamodey said that
as union logging truck drivers retire, they are being
replaced by subcontractors. Similar things are
happening to cutters and maintenance workers, he said.
“It’s spreading like a cancer,” he claimed.
