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Plum Creek Will Lay Off 145, Shut Down One Plant in Montana
By Kellyn Brown Flathead Beacon, 1-08-09
Plum Creek's Evergreen plant in Kalispell. File photo by Lido Vizzutti/Flathead Beacon
Plum Creek Timber Company announced another round of layoffs Thursday, eliminating a total of 145 jobs and leaving an additional 221 employees temporarily out of work in Kalispell, Columbia Falls, Fortine and Pablo.
In a prepared statement, Plum Creek attributed the cutback to a continuing decline in demand for wood products. The company plans to reduce production at its four lumber sawmill facilities and its medium density fiberboard plant.
“The forest products industry in general and the lumber business in particular have been severely impacted by the battered housing market,” Rick Holley, Plum Creek president and chief executive officer, said. “The closure of the Ksanka studmill and reductions in production levels at our other facilities are painful steps to take due to the job losses and impacts to a number of our valued employees.”
Plum Creek will permanently close its Ksanka sawmill in Fortine, costing 74 jobs. The Evergreen sawmill in Kalispell will curtail operations until possibly March. When it reopens it may absorb some of the volume previously produced at Ksanka, but until then 88 employees are out of work.
In Pablo and Columbia Falls, Plum Creek will also reduce its payroll. In Pablo, its sawmill will decrease shifts and eliminate 36 jobs. In Columbia Falls, the pine board sawmill will curtail production until possibly March, leaving 133 employees out of work until it reopens, and reduce shifts at its medium density fiberboard plant, costing 35 employees their jobs.
Plum Creek has gone through several rounds of layoffs in the last year as demand for wood products has waned, but this is by far the largest. In September, the company eliminated 35 jobs at its Columbia Falls fiberboard plant and another 24 at the Kalispell finger-joint stud manufacturing facility. Another 69 local employees were laid off in November.
Summary of Plum Creek Mill Cutbacks
Ksanka stud sawmill; Fortine: Permanent closure; 74 employees laid off; 60 days notice, to close in March
Pablo pine board sawmill; Pablo: Shift reduction from 1.5 to 1; 36 employees laid off; effective immediately
Medium Density Fiberboard facilities; Columbia Falls: Shift reduction from 3 to 2 on both Line 1 and Line 2; 35 employees laid off; effective January 19, 2009
Evergreen stud sawmill; Kalispell: Temporary curtailment until March; 88 employees affected; effective immediately
Columbia Falls pine board sawmill; Columbia Falls: Temporary curtailment until March; 133 employees affected; effective immediately
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"eroding demand for our products" isn't exactly the language any corporate executive wants to use about their industry; however, finally the timber industry is being straight and honest with the public, which is a good thing.
Remember, as recently as a few months ago (and certainly over the past five years as many of us warned of the dire economic consequences of over-consumption and over-development) the timber industry and their supporters were still telling us that they needed more trees from national forests to solve their problems.
NewWest readers could go back and look at many articles and accompanying comment sections for some of this "we need to just log our national forests more" rhetoric. That was never the case during this emerging economic crisis and it certainly isn't the case when you consider that Plum Creek is the largest private land own in Montana (and the nation) and has unlimited access to their own timber lands.
Hopefully, elected officials and the public will now better understand the true and honest scope of the situation facing the timber industry so that we can better move forward with solutions. I've said all along that solutions not based on reality really don't get us anywhere and certainly don't help workers or communities get on the right track for a clean, green and sustainable future.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Prepared January 6, 2009
LUMBER FORECAST REVISED DOWNWARD DUE TO WEAK HOUSING MARKET, ECONOMY
"Western mills are experiencing the largest downturn in lumber demand ever recorded."
PORTLAND, Ore. - With the weakness in the U.S. economy much deeper than was seen earlier this fall, Western Wood Products Association has scaled back its earlier forecast for lumber supply and demand for 2009.
The Association reports Western mills are experiencing the largest downturn in lumber demand ever recorded. The downward trend is forecast to continue through 2009 before beginning recovery in 2010.
U.S. lumber demand is expected to finish 2008 at 40.9 billion board feet, the third consecutive annual decline in demand and 36 percent below the 2005 peak. For 2009, lumber demand is forecast to fall to 35 billion board feet, the lowest annual consumption since 1982.
The unprecedented decline in home building has been the chief cause of the demand freefall. Traditionally, home building consumes as much as 45 percent of the lumber used each year. In 2005 alone, some 27.6 billion board feet of lumber was used in new home construction. Since then, the number of housing starts has been reduced by more than half.
For 2009, housing starts are forecast to reach just 803,000 units, a post World War II low. Lumber used in residential construction will total 9.5 billion board feet, one-third of its 2005 peak.
Entire press release at:
http://www2.wwpa.org/ABOUTWWPA/Newsroom/tabid/817/Default.aspx
By JIM MANN/Daily Inter Lake
January 9, 2009
With its log yards full and a lower demand for products, Plum Creek Timber Co. is telling logging contractors to stop work in the woods.
"We are not shutting down completely but we are cutting back on the contractors that we need," said Tom Ray, vice president of Montana operations. "We are ahead of pace for putting logs into the mills' inventories right now and we simply need to slow down on log deliveries."
Ray could not estimate how many people might be effected by the temporary shutdown on logging operations, because there are numerous contractors who have fluctuating numbers of employees and subcontractors.
"I would say over 50 percent of the contracting work force will be impacted temporarily," Ray said.
Keith Olson, executive director of the Montana Logging Association, also could not estimate the number of people who will likely be out of logging work until after the spring runoff season.
Plum Creek has been negotiating with contractors differently, depending on the varying terms of their contracts. Some have been told to stop work entirely, some have been asked to take pay reductions for remaining log loads to be delivered, some will keep operating.
The scaled-back logging operations have filtered down to subcontractors such as Joe Keller, who had five logging trucks and five employees in operation until this week.
"I've got one [truck] going through the end of this week, and then I'm done until whenever," said Keller, who added that many logging contractors and truckers 'saw the writing on the wall" for a work slowdown.
"Right now the mill yards are pretty much full," he said. "They've got a lot of inventory both in logs and lumber."
Full story at:
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2009/01/09/news/local_montana/news_8768521326_03.txt