gures extended their influence. To do some of the public relations and political lobbying work that benefited all forestworker cooperatives — but increasingly fell to the Hoedads—the NWFWA was formed. Enter the Taxman T he Hoedads’ growing clout A aroused the interest of both the competition (the private reforestation contractors) and governmental regulators. The private contractors recognized . the forestworkers as formidable competition, and created their own trade group, ARC (the Association of Reforestation Contractors). ARC didn’t really believe that a 300-person organization could be, in fact, worker-owned, and that as employees, forestworkers should not continue to avoid paying the common deductions for workers’ compensation, social security and unemployment benefits. ARC hoped to halt the burgeoning movement by forcing the deductions, and thus lowering their take-home pay. At first, during the glory years of 1975 and 76, ARC was unsuccessful in lobbying the Oregon legislature to enact restrictive laws applicable to cooperatives. Then they began pressuring state and federal agencies to investigate the Hoedads. The forestworker groups began to expend more and more of their time and money responding to agency inquiries and legislative attacks. At one point, four of the five Hoedad officers were working almost exclusively on the regulatory battles. They spent thousands of dollars trying to carve a niche within the employer-employee economic structure for a worker-controlled business. In the end, the effort proved futile. It was impossible, the forestworkers decided, to fit the round peg in the square hole. They surrendered their fight, restructured their organizations, and by 1981 began to reorganize their bookkeeping methods and pay the normal employee deductions. But money that could have been spent on training and diversification into other types of work, on capital acquisition, or even savings for any potential hard times ahead, was instead drawn into the Black Hole of legal and regulatory controversy. The terms of the defeat were also a serious drain, as the more radical members wanted to limit the restructuring effects of the decision. Within the Hoedads, for example, the decision to eliminate the autonomous work crews in order to unify and centralize the bookkeeping was viewed by some as cowardly “selling out.” Others saw it as the only practical legal option. These serious differences produced major rifts within the Hoedads, weakening, sometimes tearing the bonds of trust and cooperation that created the organization. Many individual members quit in disgust. Other co-ops disbanded rather than knuckle under to the governmental decree. Personnal problems were compounded by the co-op’s lack of familiarity with the new procedures and the resulting mistakes and delays. And workers accustomed to wages kept artificially high without employee deductions were very disappointed in their shrunken paychecks. This all occurred as the forestry depression of the 1980s came on, causing bid prices to nosedive. The hard times had indeed begun. W e found contractors who hired illegal aliens and ripped them off mercilessly. ... It amounted to slavery.” Los Illegales Some private contractors responded to the problem of falling bid prices and a narrowing (or non-existent) profit margin by illegally cutting their labor costs. The practice of hiring illegal aliens, paying them less than minimum wage, abandoning them, or having them arrested and deported when payday came around, has been part of reforestation work for years, but the timber industry Excerpts from the Hoedad newsletter, Together Iwant to get back to the crummy I want to get off of the slope My lunch has been waiting for hours Somebody might smoke all my dope My back feels like it’s on fire There’s snowflakes riding the breeze I’ve got to get back to the crummy But first I’ll plant fifty more trees! Jill C. Cheap Thrills Oregon is known as one of the cleanest legislatures in the USA. This is true, but not very satisfying when you get close to this bought-off zoo. Big-money lobbyists scurry around like a multitude of cockroaches. We all heard the story of one legislative “leader” playing poker with a lobbyist and continually winning. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Gerry Mackie I’d like to see Hoedads move more in the direction of balancing out sexually and every other way. The different experiences and viewpoints of men and women alike make for a broader and less naive approach to new situations. I’m talking about sharing ideas on everything from rebuilding engines to self-criticism to natural childbirth, sewing machines, and the proper way to run to first base! I dig learning from people who have experienced trips that are much different from mine. After six years of frustration with Hoedads’ lack of political/ cultural leading within the community and the state, I have finally realized there may be more value and influence in perfecting Hoedads as a temporary educating experience in people’s lives. I’m going to try to apply what I’m learning to other areas and people. I wish you all high times and valuable struggles. The revolution is our lives. What’s the difference between a stump and a treeplanter? A stump is dead. A treeplanter is too dumb to die. depression made the practice more attractive to unscrupulous contractors. It also became more visible, as those contractors were able to keep bidding lower and lower, winning bids at prices too low for their workers to be earning full wages. The practice became intolerable to honest contractors and forestworkers alike, since the restricted market conditions left no room for the coexistence of the scrupulous and the unscrupulous. With all the righteous indignation of the recently converted, the forestworkers demanded that all contractors be forced to abide by the labor laws. As Hoedad President Ogden explains, “Now that we’re legal, we want the others to play that game, too.” The forestworkers began searching out examples of unfair competition and labor exploitation. According to NWFWA’s Executive Director Gerry Mackie, the unscrupulous activities were easily located. “We found contractors who hired illegal aliens and ripped them off mercilessly — workers were paid well below minimum wage, were abandoned in remote worksites and John Hakanson Chris overcharged for food and shelter.” “It amounted to slavery," he added. “The threat of coercion is so easy at a remote jobsite where workers have no possibility of leaving and no legal rights.” The Northwest Forest Workers Association began campaigning to expose these illegalities, but found that the federal land managing agencies “vigorously ignored” the problem, because lower bid prices worked to their advantage — they got more work done per dollar. And aliens, who were not working legally, could not, and would not, complain. But after years of effort, including a media blitz and relentless prodding of regulatory agencies, Mackie states, “We’re now finally getting some enforcement, and the substantially crooked contractors are beginning to be driven out of business.” The Hoedads must stay in business and be able to take advantage of the new situation. And to stay in business they are trying to identify their past weaknesses and errors. They have found quite a few. Major inefficiencies in their operations were remedied with reforms such as cutting office overhead costs, revising their bidding strategy and raising worker consciousness about on-the-job safety. Half and Half MI W ■ ore difficult was the seemingly A A perpetual conflict between progressive social goals and economic survival. To some degree, in the views of J.R. Ogden and the rest of the Hoedad leadership, their idealism would have to be sacrificed to give the co-op a chance for survival. “We had compromised our economic well-being with too much emphasis upon social goals — like involving women or having too much tolerance of poor work habits," Ogden explained. According to Jack Viscardi, the president of another Eugene forestworkers’ co-op, Second Growth, “The Hoedads have always been very out front politically. For example, they were more committed to recruiting women than anyone else.” Viscardi explained that Second Growth has always been very different from Hoedads, with fewer workers forming more stable homogeneous crews of generally older and more experienced males. Second Growth does hire women (now about 15 percent of its workforce) and does support progressive forestry (they were the first to begin a multi-year land stewardship contract), but their priority is economic. “Our mission,” Viscardi explained, “is to create a successful worker-owned business — which is a fairly Ipefty thing to take on.” Second Growth recently decided to amass capital with the long-term goal of diversifying and strengthening the group. Their restructuring meant that the co-op will retain more of each individual’s earnings, intending to use the money to purchase tools and a building for an office and shop. “Everything we do now is for the benefit of those who stay — too often co-ops reward transitory workers. We had members who never participated, but got all the benefits of membership,” Viscardi noted. “It’s easy now to see that the open door was a mistake, but it sure was fun then.” The Hoedad leadership has been trying to develop that long-term perspective in its work force too, but at a considerable cost. Faced with declining income due to depressed market conditions and the costs of the new bookkeeping system, the Hoedad management suggested a reduction in pay. The general membership vetoed the plan in April of 1983. In the fallout the bitterness of that battle, and others ajpout restructuring the co-op, many Hoedads quit. Those who left, according to President Ogden, were those with a short-term orientation, leaving behind an organization strengthened, unified and much more likely to survive. Bruce Maederer, Hoedad president in 1978, has recently returned from a short retirement to assume the vital job of secretary and bidding coordinator. Maederer sees the recent changes as positive ones. “For our survival, we need our most productive people only, so we will accept fewer trainees and have already — for the first time ever — begun laying off those who could not produce at the level we needed. In 1984, we have to prioritize, and some of our social goals will have to be deferred.” Deferring progressive commitments may seem like sound management practice to some, but to others — especially to the female Hoedads who quit in droves during 1983 — it is selling out. Betsy Reeves joined Hoedads in 1978 and worked on the all-woman crew, Half and Half. Though she has not formally retired from Hoedads, as have most Half and Half women, she is not working with the co-op and doesn't expect to. She is blunt in her accusation: “There are many clear examples of sexism in Hoedads, and that created the breakdown.” Half and Half had from its inception struggled to devise a means of reconciling the nature and challenge of treeplanting, which is basically piecework, with the wide range of capabilities and experience among its members. Workers were thus paid half for their personal production, and half for what the group made as a whole. Half and Half also served as a metaphoric goal for male/ female membership in the entire Hoedads organization. Especially over the last two years, Reeves noticed a mutual mistrust developing between the Half and Half crew and both the generally male Hoedad leadership and other crews. Their approaches to work were very different. On the women's crew, the emphasis was not just on money. “There was much more nurturing on our crew, hugging, combing each other’s hair, massages, making music together," she explained. “But eventually there was just no room made for variable work ethics by the majority of Hoedads.” With the organizational restructuring and new bookkeeping system that was 18 Clinton St. Quarterly
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