Newsgroups: ba.politics,ca.politics,ca.environment
From: rchilder@us.oracle.com (Richard Childers)
Subject: Mill accidents reflect timber industry danger
Followup-To: ca.environment
Summary: it's all the fault of those !@#$% tree-spiking activists
Keywords: redwood summer tree spiking lumber industry activist sawmill
Organization: Memes-R-Us
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 17:05:46 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.


( a few weeks ago, I promised to post an article pertaining to the recent
  debate on these newsgroups, over the propriety of Redwood Summer, and the
  validity of blaming mill accidents on activists whom might have planted
  spikes in trees to order to dissuade large lumber firms from harvesting
  old-growth forests, which are irreplaceable ecologies thousands of years
  old, according to local scientific resources. This is the article. Sorry
  for the delay. 	-- richard )


Courtesy of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, 16 September 1992, page 10


		Mill accidents reflect timber industry danger
			- by Christine Keyser -

Last week's grisly accident, in which three workers at the Pacific Lumber
Company's Scotia, California, mill died when they climbed into a jammed
log debarking machine, was symptomatic of an industry that has historically
ranked among California's most dangerous. And critics charge that that the
timber industry has become more hazardous in recent years, as large corpor-
-ations have taken over local timber operations and accelerated the pace of
logging, lumber production, and automation.

Last week's fatal accident was the third since the Scotia mill opened three
years ago, Pacific Lumber spokesperson Mary Bullwinkle confirmed. Other mills
have also seen recent fatalities.

Three years ago this week, on the night of September 14th, 1989, Don Beavers
discovered the twisted body of his co-worker, Fortunado Reyes, in a lumber
tray sorter at Louisiana-Pacific Corporation's Ukiah sawmill. Minutes earlier,
Reyes - who was on "light duty" because of a back injury - had been crushed
to death between moving lumber planks and a steel beam. He had hastily climbed
into the huge tray to straighten the boards without locking down the machinery.

Last April, Beavers and Randy Veach, both veteran certified lumber graders,
publically charged their employer with failing to correct safety violations
at the Ukiah mill - violations they blamed for Reyes' death. In a letter to
local newspapers, they also criticized Louisiana-Pacific ( L-P ) for replac-
-ing mill workers with machines, and relocating to Mexico to save labor costs.

"Since Mr. Reyes' death, we've seen endless, flagrant safety violations on a
_daily_ basis", the two men wrote. "Employees have been programmed to take
chances for fear of being replaced. Employees are yelled at for slowing or
halting production to straighten askew lumber, so they quickly climb up on
chains or chain tables to do this without proper safety lockout procedures."

Soon after their public charges, Beavers and Veach - who, together, had more
than 30 years of experience at the Ukiah mill - were demoted. Later they
resigned under pressure. The two men are now fighting for unemployment bene-
-fits, since L-P filed an appeal against their claims.

Accidents are common in the North Coast woods as well as in the mills. This
summer, three loggers were killed at L-P timber cuts on the Albion River, and
a log truck driver was killed in a collision with another log truck near
Leggett in Mendocino County. The same season, a worker at Masonite's Ukiah
mill was seriously injured in a boiler-house fire, and a mill worker's arm was
crushed in a moving machine at the Pacific Lumber mill in Scotia, where last
week's fatal accident occurred.

[ editor's note : this gives a whole new meaning to the word "_red_wood". -rc ]

Richard Stephens, a spokesperson for the California Occupational Safety and
Health Agency ( Cal-OSHA ) said reports of safety violations at the Scotia mill
were "not uncommon." In general, he said, Cal-OSHA statistics show loggers and
mill workers are far more likely to suffer on-the-job injuries than other
workers. In 1990, the last year for which Cal-OSHA has compiled statistics,
25 percent of timber workers lost work time due to job-related injuries or
illnesses, compared to 9.9 percent of workers in all California industries,
Stephens said.

Cal-OSHA investigates whenever a worker is seriously injured or killed, and
can fine timber companies $7,000 per violation, and up to $70,000 for wilful or
repeat violations, Stephens said.

Yet when Beavers and Veach called called Cal-OSHA to inspect Reyes' death, the
inspectors merely cited L-P for three minor safety violations, since no one
actually witnessed the fatal accident. L-P appealed the $1,200 fine and got it
cut in half. [ hah, hah. - rc ] The company sent Reyes' widow, Maria, a check
for $2,000 to pay for her husband's burial.

Lois Busey, public relations officer at L-P's Western Division headquarters in
Samoa, California, dismissed Beavers' and Veach's complaints as sour grapes
from "a couple of disgruntled employees." She denied that safety violations
had caused Reyes' death and refused to discuss the charges further.



[ yes, it's obviously the fault of those !@#$% tree-spiking activists. - rc ]


If you think this article was well-written, relevant, and appropriate to this
media, I encourage you to call the San Francisco Bay Guardian and leave a
message for Tim Redmond, the editor, asking him to consider posting articles
to the Net, after a few weeks have elapsed and the original newspapers are no
longer on the stands. The Bay Guardian is a weekly free newspaper available
throughout the Bay Area on streetcorners everywhere, and vanishes quickly -
probably through a combination of an appreciative audience, and a vengeful
set of anti-activists. They can be written to at

			San Francisco Bay Guardian
			attn: Elizabeth Walker
			520 Hampshire Street
			San Francisco, CA 94110
			(415) 255-3100



-- richard

-- 
=====
-- richard childers		rchilder@us.oracle.com		1 415 506 2411
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