THE CALIFOR}.IIA LUMBERMERCHANT

W. T. BTACK Advertising Mtrncrger

How lrumber Lrooks

The Lumber and Sawmill Workers LTnion (A.F. of L.) called a strike at the Redrvood mills in Mendocino and Humboldt counties on January 14. The principal union demands arc a 22f cents an hour pay increase, union shop, and the right to fix relative wages of workers. An increase of 15 cents an hour, the same as accepted by Fir workers in the Northwest, was offered and was turned down by the union.

Seattle, Washington, Januarv 11 , 1946-The weekly average of West Coast lumber production in December (4 weeks) was 88,271,000 board feet, or 54.4 per cent of l94l1944 average, according to the West Coast Lumbermen's Association in its monthly survey of the industry. Orders averaged 90,489,000 b.f.; shipments 85,550,000. Weekly averages for November \\'ere: Production 53,686,000 b.f. (33.1 per cent of the l9+l-I941 average) ; orders 60,152,000; shipments, 50,018,000.

Fifty-two weeks lor 1915, cumulative production 5,799,672,M b.t.; 52 rveeks, 1944,7,902,289,0@; 52 weeks, 1943, 7,920,42t,W0.

Orders for 52 r,veeks of 7945 break down as follows : Rail, 4,609,336,000 b.f.; domestic cargo, 658,037,000; export, 402,576,000 ; local, 578,918,000.

The industry's unfilled order file stood at 738,232,000 bJ at the end of December; gross stocks at 400,4O5,000.

1945 was a year of uncertainties and shocks for'West Coast lumber prodrrcers. Since V-J Day, the in<lustry ha.; continued to meet one crisis after another. Its outlook is on market conditions rvhich defy prediction because they are new and changing; for example, the Civilian Production Administration's Priority Regulation 33 on lumber and nine other building materials, to promote the building of dwellings costing $10,000 or less. Lumbermen are as much in the dark on the eft-ect PR 33 may have on their business as they were on war demands for lurnber at this time last year.

In November, 1944, the prospect of an early V-E Day rvas lrright. In January, 1945, the "Bulge" disaster rvas raising a flood of nen' rvar orders for lumber. They receded with victory in Europe, and then urgent demands for lumber to supply the attack on Japan struck the mills. V-J Day brorrght cancellatior.r of military orders for over 300 nrillion feet of West Coast lumber. Then came a crippling strike. Nationalll', builcling construction has continued to n-rark time, because of scarcitv of building labor and lorv supply of ten key materials.

The West Coast lumber industry stands equipped with vast reserves of fine timber, modern mills and able personnel, to produce for home building. But the industry faces lines of normal production and trade which are in a complex of controls that survive from the emergencies of rvar. The giant building industry, surging n'ith productive po\\,er, is under a thousand restraints that fornr a tangled web from the forest to the homesite. The West Coast lum-

(Continued on Page 32)