by Doug Collins

The Free Press

illustration by Dick Lande

Producer co-ops have two substantial benefits:

• First, because they own the company, workers have a natural loyalty to it, which theoretically ensures that co-op productivity is comparable or superior to that of conventional corporations.
• Second, employment is more stable. When a producer co-op has a dip in sales, the workers typically vote to lower their wages across the board until sales are better, rather than make layoffs.

The real powerhouses of the Northwest producer co-op legacy have been plywood manufacturers, starting with

Olympia Veneer in 1921. At their height, cooperatively owned plywood mills numbered perhaps 30 in the region, many of which were formed when workers bought out and restored failed corporate mills. Although the number of co-op mills has decreased dramatically over the past two decades, this decline hasn't been due to a lack of productivity.

One wonders what could have been possible if the co-op mills had pooled their resources, diversified their products and expanded co-op principles into other industries or locations.

In the late 1970s, according to writer Daniel Zwerdling in his book Workplace Democracy, the phenomenal success of these co-ops led to the sale of many of them to large corporations. The value of worker-owned shares skyrocketed, so workers had a strong incentive to sell out. In one mill, the workers earned about $200,000 each for such a sell out. Golden parachutes for lumberjacks.

Since 1990, however, the co-op mills have been faring as badly as the spotted owl. There are now only three still in operation that we could locate: Ft. Vancouver Plywood and Hardell Mutual in Washington, and Linnton Plywood in Oregon.

What has caused this decline? The price and scarcity of Northwest timber, explains Linnton manager Dick Hall. "Ten years ago our shares were as high as $94,000 a piece. But we couldn't even sell them for $5,000 now because of the high price of raw material." Hall also says that the corporate mills owned by large timber companies such as Weyerhaeuser, Champion and Georgia Pacific are surviving better because they don't have to buy their own timber. These companies have many of their own tree farms to harvest from.

Stanford economist John Pencavel, who researched the co-ops in the late 1980s, sees their plight as simply one symptom of a larger trend: "The whole timber industry is going under in the Northwest and moving to the South. The closings of the co-op mills aren't a particular failure of the co-op system." Environmental regulation in the Northwest and a comparative lack of regulation in the South are making the move attractive for corporate managers.

One wonders what could have been possible if the co-op mills had pooled their resources, diversified their products and expanded co-op principles into other industries or locations. The Mondrag—n cooperatives of Spain, for example, have achieved great size and diversity by actively promoting the humanistic benefits of their co-op system.

As Pencavel points out, "You have to remember that these plywood co-ops were not motivated by idealism. It was a money-making proposition from the start. The individual mills were always more or less isolated from each other." In this case, as in many, it's possible that idealism in the long run would have been more practical.

To learn more about the many local co-ops - including consumer, producer, housing, and farm co-ops - call the Puget Sound Cooperative Federation at 206-632-4559.

Although Wal-Mart is swimming in government subsidies, its generosity to its employees is questionable. Union workers in other retail stores fear that the relatively low wages and lack of benefits at Wal-Mart will encourage their own companies to seek lower wages. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 agreed in late 1993 to double their dues in order to fight entry into the Washington market by Wal-Mart and other union-busting stores.

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NAFTA Aftermath

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U.S. Newspapers Put Their Own Spin on the Mexican Government - From reading news service reports in the mainstream media, one would think Mexican President Salinas was a peace-loving saint, eager to please the rebelling Chiapans. Death reports in our newspapers generally echoed the official Mexican figure of about 100. Even after the government declared a cease-fire, human rights groups have reported continued fighting, torture, mass executions and the discovery of mass graves. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the implementation of NAFTA on Jan. 1, which stands to severely disrupt the agrarian economies of Mexican Indians. For example, cheap corn imports from the U.S. and the likely conversion of corn farmland to export crops such as coffee will probably displace many Mexican farmers and upset local barter.

U.S. Companies Fire Mexican Union Activists - More than 20 workers were fired from a Honeywell plant in Chihuahua in December, where an organizing drive by an independent Mexican union was taking place. According to the workers - all women - they were individually interrogated for four hours before the firings, reports Labornotes. At a General Electric plant in Ciudad Juarez, the site of a similar organizing drive, 11 workers were fired. Some of the 11 had assisted or spoken with a delegation of U.S. unionists that had visited Juarez in November. Six were reinstated in late December after protest letters were sent to the U.S. Congress.

Revenge Planned for Pro-NAFTA Politicians? - It's possible that organized labor may repay Democrats who voted yes on NAFTA, by recruiting and financing pro-labor candidates to run against them in upcoming elections. Statewide, only Rep. Jolene Unsoeld of District 3 voted against NAFTA. According to a Seattle P-I report by Rebecca Boren, area labor leaders are considering challengers for Mike Kreidler, a Democrat from District 9. A big disappointment for Seattle-area labor was Jim McDermott's yes vote.

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NEXT ISSUE: You're Fired!

If your boss is a jerk or you hate where you work, give us a shout and we'll check the facts out! Address your facts to Doug Collins c/o The Free Press, 1463 E. Republican, #178, Seattle 98112. Or...

Have a Labor-related story to tell? Good news or bad.. send it to Doug Collins WAfreepress@gmail.com and he'll tell the world.

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Contents on this page were published in the February/March, 1994 edition of the Washington Free Press.
WFP, 1463 E. Republican #178, Seattle, WA -USA, 98112. -- WAfreepress@gmail.com
Copyright © 1994 WFP Collective, Inc.