THE CALIFOR}.IIA LUMBERMERCHANT

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W. T. BI.ACK

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Strikes Close Lumber Plants

Portland, Ore., Sept. 24-An estimated 40 per cent of Northwest lumbering camps, sawmills and plants were shut dorvn today as 60,000 A.F.L. workers launched a strike to force negotiations of wage demands on an industry-wide scale.

Production at 348 logging camps, sarvmills and woodworking plants was stilled effective at 12:0L a.m. today in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

The strike was called after conciliation efforts of the Labor Department's special lumber commission broke down over industry-wide demands for a $1.10 hourly minimum wage, met. CIO demands for a 25 cents per hour increase in' cludes an hourly minimum of $1.15 an hour' per The strikers embrace two classifications of workers, crane drivers who get $1.37% cents an hour and carrier drivers who get $1.11% cents an hour.

Operators estimated the strike r,r'ill affect about 15 cent of the nation's lumber and u'ood products supply.

The seven large lumber yards in the Los Angeles harbor district were closed on September 17 when 45 members of the A.F.L. International Union of Operating Engineers went on strike.

The union <iemancled a blanket increase ol l2l cents an hour for lumber carrier and steam and electric crane operators, retroactive to July 1, 1944. They turned down an ofier of 7l cents for carrier operators, and l2l cents for crane operators, retroactive to July l, 1945.

Yreka,. Calif., Sept. 25.-Several hundred A.F.L. lumber workers in Siskiyou County were out on strike today as labor troubles spread into California from the Pacific Northwest. A union spokesman here said: "We have received no official word to go on strike, and we will not until the plants are picketed."

Portland, Ore., Sept. 27.-The negotiating committee of the International Woodrvorkers of America (CIO) continued policy meetings but did not issue a strike call to its 40,000 workers. The commitiee has been authorized by the locals to call a strike if the wage demands are not

. On September ?7, eight lumber companies in San Diego were closed by a strike called by the Millmen's Union and the Teamsters lJnion of the A.F.L. The dispute is over the retroactive date, the unions requesting the increase retroactive to December l,1944. The companies have offered to make the increase retroactive to August 18, 1945, the date when the General Order No. 40 was issued which permitted the employers of the nation to increase wages without board approval, providing the increase would not be used in whole or in part to increase or resist the reduction of ceiling prices. Thirty-three lumber companies in the San Diego area are involved in the dispute.