Nelson Moves to Increase Lumber Production

\YPB Chairman Names Frederick H. Brundage as Western Log and Lumbcr Administrator

Chairman Donald M. Nelson of the War Production Board today issued the following statement:

In order to facilitate a program of all-out lumber production, I am today designating Frederick H. Brundage as Western Log and Lumber Administrator of the Lumber and Lumber Products Branch. Mr. Brundage has been granted a leave of absence from his position as Associate Regional Forester in the Sixth Region by the United States Forest Service. As Western Log and Lumber Administrator, he will have the full powers of the War Production Board to carry out such action programs as may be necessary in order to obtain the qualities and quantities of lumber required by the war program.

To advise and assist Mr. Brundage, a board will shortly be appointed for the Western lumber industry. This advisory board, including management and labor mernbers, will be representative of the various segments in the industry.

I have sent letters to the International Woodworkers of America and the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, with a request that the contents be forwarded to the district and local unions of these two international unions in the lumber industry on the Pacific Coast, asking that those who work in the woods and in the sawmills forego their vacations this year, accepting instead the money payment for the vacation while working for wages during the vacation period.

At the same time I am requesting the owners and operators in the Pacific Coast lumber industry to 1og at this time the best and most accessible timber in the region. Lumber this year is much more important to the 'ivar program than lumber next year or in 1944. I am also recluesting the operators to utilize their existing equipment to the fullest possible extent and to conserve on the use of trucks by substituting rvater and rail transportation of logs wherever that can be done without reducing log output.

Similarly I am directing an appeal to the Governors of the Pacific Coast states requesting that they review State legislation and practices which may restrict lumber production. For exarnple, in some instances there has been the practice to penalize owners of trucks for overloading by means not only of a fine but also a penalty that keeps the truck off the road for a period of from three to fifteen days; and also there is legislation forbidding the hauling of logs on Sunday, which legislation presumably was based on the assumption that passenger traffic on Sunday used to be much heavier than such traffic on weekdays.

Lumber from every region in the United States is an important and critical material in our whole war program. It is needed for the construction of cantonments, ships, planes, gliders, pontoons, war housing, for Lend-Lease, for packaging war products, and as a substitute for critical materials in the war program. The production of war materials such as lumber from the woods and copper from the mines is just as important in preparation for defeat of the Axis as is the production of finished war items made from such raw materials. Indeed, without the raw materials the finished products cannot be made.

Log and lumber production on the Pacific Coast is belorv that for the corresponding months of last year, primarily because of the scarcity of skilled labor, high labor turnover, and poor weather this spring. The movement of skilled workers out of logging on the Pacific Coast has resulted in their replacement by less skilled workers which is one of the important factors in the decline of lumber produc- tion. In order to aid in maintaining workers in certain critical skilled occupations, arrang'ements have been made r,vith the Selective Service System for the listing of .,critical occupations" in the Pacific Coast states so that persons skilled in such occupations may be considered by their local boards for temporary deferment from military service as "necessary men" for lumber production in furtherance of the war effort.

Since part of the labor scarcity arises from the loss of