LogForFree.Com

By Dana Doran

Earlier this summer, one of our members sent me the article reprinted on the next page from the May/June 2007 edition of TimberWest Magazine. He wanted me to read it and let him know if anything has really changed in the logging business in the last 15 years or is everything in this article still true. I constantly hear from many out there that they are working for rates that are the same or less in many cases than they were 15 years ago with the same treatment and top down price taker conditions. Clearly, what’s old is new again.

I was so floored by the fact that this article was nearly 15 years old, but is just as factual today as the day that it was written, that I had to see if I could have permission from the author to reprint it because more than just me and one of our members needed to see this.

After a few weeks of reaching out to old employers, we found Ms. Rene’ Cuchens (formerly Rene’ van der Merwe) and her exact words were, “It is so amazing that you brought this up now - I just had the exact same conversation with a customer. It’s particularly scarring that whilst lumber prices have skyrocketed - nobody, from the owner of the trees to the loggers etc. have received ANY increase. And I have heard this from the USA to Sweden.” A strong and impassioned response from someone who wrote this not just for attention, but to make a point. That point was just as true then as it is today. But before I delve deeply into how powerful Ms. Cuchens’ article was then and now, I want to discuss the reaction I received from my last article, “Anti-Trust, Contractor or Employee”, not only because of the strong heartfelt reaction I received from our membership, but also because of the attempted wrist slap I have endured for touching a chord. I fully expected to hear some disagreement or finger pointing, but what I’ve experienced is emblematic of exactly what is wrong with the top-down control model that exists within the supply chain that Ms. Cuchens describes as having an, “inexplicable lack of integrity and reason.”

From our members, I received, “Just read your loggers voice article. Thanks again for everything you do for us loggers.” From another, I heard, “Great job on the article. This is something that needed to be said for years. Now we need to educate all contractors in Maine that what they’re being asked to do is not legal.” One the one hand, this told me that people really do read the articles, but on the other, it sounded as if folks were relieved that what they had thought for years, but were afraid to say, was really true. Now they could say it with accuracy.

From others, the reaction was predictable, but telling, all at the same time. I received a phone call from Gordie Muow at the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). Mr. Muow is the SFI Standard Implementation Committee (SIC) Coordinator nationally and works closely with each state’s SIC committee.

Mr. Muow wanted to inform me that my article, “misstated some important facts,” and needed to be corrected. He claimed that SFI’s standard is voluntary and that nothing is mandatory, including logger training. When I pressed him on this statement by stating that indeed, SFI is voluntary for certificate holders, but not for those who sell wood to certificate holders, the conversation became a bit terse.

I explained that for contractors in states like Maine where the SFI standard has been adopted by all of the wood consuming mills for a specific commodity, the choice to sell wood without “trained loggers” is not voluntary and was mandatory as a condition of work or wood sales. Clearly perturbed (my words not his), Mr. Muow told me I was, “just frustrated and angry” and that I was again, misstating the facts. I told him that I stood by my article and the argument it was making.

Mr. Muow then went on to state that the attorney’s from SFI had assured him that there were no anti-competitive issues with the standard, that loggers were involved in its development, and he would send me confirmation of this in writing. Our conversation was in late July and I’m still waiting to read that material.

I have also noticed in the past sixty days activity to suppress the voice of loggers and a lack of respect for the place that loggers fit within various initiatives that state government is working on here in Maine. What was a respected position for the PLC on various initiatives having to do with state policy has become strained in the last two months. My presumption is that is has something to do with the waves that have been made with the article.

Suggestions from loggers that have been discussed and championed for the last two years on a consistent basis in policy circles are suddenly being browbeat with force at the last minute. Loggers are also being kept out of committees to discuss policy which impacts how they operate in certain communities in the state and more of those “qualified logger” trainings are being created without any logger input, but the expectation that it will suddenly improve performance on the ground. It’s amazing to me how concerted the effort is to ensure that loggers just don’t get any advantage or recognition for the work they do or the chance to offer the perspective that they can provide because of fear of the loss of control. However, I’ll leave that for a future article which deserves more attention than a few paragraphs this month.

Coming back to Ms. Cuchens’ story from 2007, I just can’t get over how strikingly ironic and truthful this article is regarding the plight of loggers in Maine at the present time, especially considering what has happened over the last 16 months.

Since mud season ended in late May and June, there have been many of our members who have shrunk in size, cutting crews, parking equipment or selling it all to make a point that they just can’t keep doing this without recognition that even though prices are lower for wood, their costs have not shrunk and only increased. This has been fueled by a lack of markets for some commodities and ultra-low pricing because of a lack of competition.

Despite these low prices, there is still a select group whose members still believe that there is just another contractor out there waiting to take the job. They also still believe that cutting quota or cutting prices for harvesting and hauling is the only way that they can make money in the long run and loggers are not only expendable, but replaceable. Be damned with the plight of loggers and the fact that fuel prices have increased 50% in the last 10 months, that labor costs are bankrupting many and parts have gone up by 3050% in the same timeframe. What they see but refuse to acknowledge is that it is not the fault of contractors that markets for some commodities have dissipated. But, evidently they believe it is still loggers’ fault that profit margins for many aren’t as high so they will just be used in the end to meet someone else’s bottom line.

That said, there are a few out there who are trying to do the right thing and I do want to recognize them without naming names. They know who they are and so do our members. They know how hard it is for contractors right now and they are doing all they can to pass along various increases because until markets change, it’s more important to keep contractors in business than cut them to the bone until they’re gone forever. For that, I know that I can say with great honesty that our members are thankful for their relationship and this type of empathy in very

Doran Continued on Page 126

Doran Continued from Page 11 16 challenging times.

Despite the lack of markets out there today, the biggest issue that I hear about, no matter where I might be, is the labor shortage. The fact that labor costs are going through the roof, the fact that not only are there not enough people to fill the seats, but few to none are responding to help wanted ads and even bonuses aren’t working. The worker shortage is real, but is it a shortage of able-bodied people or is it simply a shortage of money?

As Ms. Cuchens said in her article, “At the end of the day, logging is one of the top 10 most dangerous occupations in America, and loggers need to be paid competitively for the risk and the investments they make. If a plumber with a tool belt charges $75 an hour and is paid on the spot after completing his job, being paid less than $25 an hour for performing the mindful work of a harvester operator seems eerily out of whack.”

Regardless of where contractors operate, there is a shortage of people who want to work in the industry right now and it’s getting worse by the day. For those who are working in the industry, they have contractors between a rock and hard place for the wages that they are demanding because there simply aren’t people around the corner who want to work 5060 hours a week for wages that they don’t feel are competitive. Most who have skills that can be applied to another work environment can make more money, work less hours, and have a balance in their lives that they want in the long run. As PLC President Tony Madden stated in his article at the beginning of this quarter’s magazine, it is hard to fathom what is going to happen if a federal infrastructure bill passes and puts even more pressure on logging contractors to not only attract new talent, but retain the folks that they currently have.

In 2019, the PLC published a study that estimated the number of people that were needed in this industry in the next 10 years, but also compared similar skill occupations to logging operators and truck drivers in terms of pay and benefits. The study found that not only do we need to replace 2,000 people who are retiring over that timeframe, but operators and truck drivers are paid the lowest wages of all. This isn’t something that the logging community is embellishing to make a point, it is the reality of the world that we live in and the pandemic has driven home this point even more. The additional $300 unemployment benefits dried up more than a month ago and we are not seeing people flock to this industry in droves. If there are people that want to work, they want fewer hours for more money and as it currently stands, a new entrant into this industry is not going to get what they are looking for at the current time.

On October 5th, I had the opportunity with some of our Board members to sit down with US Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and Congressman Golden to talk about the workforce issues that plague our industry both now and in the future. We discussed training, legislation that would change the legal age for family members of contractors to work in the woods, unemployment insurance and a few other timely subjects. However, what everyone kept coming back to was the fact that our number one issue today is the ability to recruit new talent because contractors can’t compete with other industries as a result of the inability to pay competitive wages. Contractors are price takers and not price setters and as a result, their destiny and determination has literally been stolen from them.

After the event, I received one of the greatest pieces of feedback from a PLC member that I have every received in this job, which was not only timely, but spot on, especially as it relates to this article and the situation that everyone is facing.

One of our members emailed me and said, “It is fantastic that loggers got some facetime in person (with the Secretary of Labor and Congressman Golden). And albeit, labor is a really, really huge issue, there is a much larger elephant in the room money. It is that simple. money. Or rather, the gaping lack of. Please explain how loggers can afford to pay reasonable, modern wages to potential employees if we are competing with every other industry out there for the same people. Period.” I couldn’t say it any better myself and I really appreciated his candor, concern and honesty with this issue. Clearly, this is what all of you are facing and clearly it is also what you are thinking.

No one will disagree that expanded markets for wood commodities will help. Competition in a free market is what our nation is founded upon. However, this is not 2016 after the last of six pulp mills closed when contractors were in such a state of shock that they didn’t know what else they could do besides harvest and truck wood. Contractors have lived through this twice, if not three times in the last decade and most are not willing to live through it again.

A famous proverb states, “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” Contractors have been fooled multiple times and they are not gun shy any longer. They have left the industry, they have diversified to protect themselves, and they are not telling their children to work in this industry and learn the old-fashioned way like they did. Times are changing quickly and new markets are not going to solve this issue once again.

As Ms. Cuchens stated in her article, “When the price of a product is fixed above market value, there is a surplus of that item as the Arabs discovered with oil. When the price of a product is fixed below market value, it typically disappears as the Russians discovered with everything. We have here a basic law of economics. If loggers continue to work below their cost or with miserable margins at best, another segment of independent small business America will cease to exist.”

“

A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice,” Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, 1792.

Doran Continued on Page 1416

Doran Continued from Page 13

Thank you Ms. Cuchens for writing this article in 2007 and thank you PLC member for bringing it to my attention once again. What’s old is new again and those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it. Logforfree.com cannot continue to happen if we are going to have a successful forest economy in this state both now and in the future.

Stay safe, be well and I look forward to seeing all of you at the PLC’s 25th Annual Meeting later this month.

When Eric Hanington announced plans in 2017 to leave his job managing a paper machine at International Paper’s Eastover mill in South Carolina and return to Maine to join his father in the family logging business, Hai, the mill’s manager, asked to see him.

“He said, ‘Eric, what’s your Dad paying you? I’ll double it!’,” Eric recalls. “I said, ‘Hai, you’re already doubling it and then some. It’s not about the money!’”

For Eric, who came home in 2017 to Hanington Brothers Inc. in Macwahoc after several years working in southern states including Alabama and South Carolina, it still isn’t.

“It wasn’t necessarily a business decision,” Eric said. “This is a company that had been around so long in our family, and the thought of having it just dissolve and no longer exist? I wanted to see the family business continue.”

Wherever the desire to continue a family logging business into another generation comes from these days, it’s generally not the money. If it were, multigenerational logging companies would be few and far between in Maine, because in most cases it would be easier and more cost effective for both the older and younger generation to liquidate the business and walk away when that older generation reaches retirement age.

Yet Maine’s logging industry is anchored by family logging businesses. Obstacles to starting a logging business from scratch are significant, and so the best chance to maintain a strong logging industry is to ensure existing family businesses can continue.

The average age of both owners and workers in Maine’s logging industry is rising each year. Already, businesses are struggling to replace older workers lost to retirement or health issues. As more and more owners of logging firms approach the point where they too will want to stop working or be forced to, the issue of what happens to their businesses afterward is on many owners’ minds. What they decide to do, and whether succession is even possible due to the financial and regulatory obstacles, will affect Maine’s entire forest economy.

The younger generation

For a logging business succession plan to be