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The Blue Heron paper company has announced 50 layoffs and filed for Chapter 11 bankrupcy — both moves the company says it needs to make to stay in business. Despite the major blow, 165 Blue Heron's employees will keep their jobs. Mill workers at another plant were not so lucky. International Paper closed its Albany plant in December, leaving workers and the community reeling.
For the families directly affected by the job losses, the impact is of course enormous. But the shrinking paper business also changes the econonmic realities for many other regional businesses as well.
Have you lost your job at a paper mill? Are you getting the financial or retraining assitance you need? Do you still work in the paper industry or in a company that does business with a paper mill? How secure do you feel?
Tagged as: jobs · paper industry · recession
Photo credit: SoulRider.222 / Creative Commons
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See, I would see it as healthy that we killed off those jobs early on in this country. The jobs were going to go away no matter what. Yes, jobs went overseas, but eventually those overseas jobs are going to die off too.
You say forest product demand still exists, but it is going to go away. Health care is going completely paperless. eBook readers are still in their infancy and will kill off paper demand for books, magazines, and newspapers.
We, in this country, have a head start on retooling our industries and finding new ways to package and print.
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I do not at all agree that print media has been affected by the invasion of digital media. I'm quite well aware of great companies like Purple Lion Paper working good. Digital media has grown to every sector of the world that would have had a little impact over the print media. I think still there are more people who rely on print media. The news is so sad that there are so many people who would become jobless.
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Shuttered mills represent lost good-paying jobs for Oregonians and Washingtonians, but that loss might end up being a net gain for the environment over the long term. We do need to focus on finding new opportunities for displaced mill workers.
I see the opposite of what Lesjoel noted: more paper is used than ever. I receive heaps of ineffective junk mail. I get two or three copies of receipts depending on the business. I don't have subscriptions to newspapers and magazines largely due to the paper consumed; that paper will end up being recycled or tossed.
Fascinating that the Technology Age was supposed to help us reduce overall paper use, but the opposite has occurred. I'm flabbergasted how much paper is used by health care professionals. I was told the papwerwork is required to protect their backsides in the Litigious Age.
I worked for a firm that generated several thousand pages of invoice reports each month. These reports were used for a few days then tossed. I sought to convince management to implement an electronic invoice system but that met with resistance. Most employees were more comfortable with paper documents, especially if they had experienced lost or corrupted digital versions. But that was earlier in the Technology Age.
As use of technology becomes more ubiquitous then we will rely less on paper than we do today.
It might be helpful to preface our conversation with the observation that our society is undergoing a fundamental change akin to the transition from the Agrarian to Industrial Age.
We know our overconsumption of resources over the last two three centuries in unsustainable in the long term so now we're going to become efficiency and environment minded. I'll call this the Environmental Renaissance for lack of a more imaginative term.
We will either change our destructive and negative behavior or we will become extinct.
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Health care is changing very quickly.
As early as 10 years ago, hospitals were turning out 800-900 pages, on average, of data per sleep/EEG study and were usually running anywhere between 4-10 studies PER NIGHT. Digital PSG and EEG have eliminated paper in those labs leaving just medical reports sent to referring physicians.
And, of course, even the need for paper for the medical reports is going away very fast.
It is much easier these days to setup security and off-site backups, so smaller clinics and labs are starting to accelerate their conversion.
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As far as newsprint paper sales go... I used to buy a newspaper to read on the MAX to and from work... But now the price is not competitive. I cannot afford a buck just to read the headlines and the funnies.
Other riders read the news on their laptops with no paper involved.
But the major problem with the loss of Timber, Paper and Other jobs is GREED. These corporations need to realize that they don't have to make massive profits off of everything they do.
You can run a business where people are employed and the company makes a profit... Yeah, you can make more pofit if you open a factory in Korea, but nobody in America will get a job from it.
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I still get the Oregonian daily, and carefully recycle my newspaper, magazines, boxes, other paper I discard. I try to bring my own bags to stores, but ask for paper bags when I forget. But I'm probably using fewer paper grocery bags than I used to, because of using cloth bags. We probably should demand paper bags and BAN plastic bags, for other ecological reasons!
Nancy Westrell - The Far Southeast, Portland
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Most paper mills are very large industrial facilities that require large amounts of water, require expensive environmental control equipment to protect water quality and environmental permits to operate. How much do the environmental considerations lead to the closure of these plants, especially in light of foreign competition with lower environmental regulatory burdens?
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I work for West Linn Paper Company in West Linn OR, and wanted to share our perspective on adjusting to the current economic environment. All businesses need to adjust and adapt to economic constraints placed on routine business activity. The paper industry is no different - we are faced with changes in the marketplace both from customer expectations and declining demand. We have worked hard over the past couple years to develop new opportunities - new customers, new grades of papers. We've focused our business on emerging market segments such as certified sustainable papers. We've also modified our production process - our equipment, our strategies, to reduce our energy demand and conserve the raw materials that are so central to the papermaking industry.
Given our size, we're able to be more flexible and this has helped us survive the fluctuations in the paper market and the recession in general. We recognize the responsibility associated with providing 250 family wage jobs, and we're working hard and working creatively to ensure our mill remains economically viable and industrially relevant.
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Listening to John the guest today I was surprised to hear a new word,"Pagination", I guess this means something but am not sure the use of words like this and those like issue to mean problem, a perfectly good word, is one of the reasons I don't read a daily newspaper. Oregon smells better without paper mills and maybe Obama can bail out the 200 some lost jobs at a cost of $300,000 per job. Perhaps the mill workers should join the UAW.
Personally I use lots more paper than I used to reading books and using paper bags but the writing has been on the wall (and not on paper) for a long time.
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When I heard recently that Blue Heron Paper Co. was declaring bankruptcy, I hoped and prayed that this could mean the natural death of Clackamas County's biggest polluter. This huge mill is an industrial dinosaur, blighting a once stunning (but now highly engineered) natural wonder, the Willamette Falls. Surely this short stretch of the river - where the Willamette is joined by the Molalla, the Tualatin and Clackamas Rivers, was sacred ground for the tribes that lived here when the Europeans first colonized the area.
I've been working with others in Oregon City's historic McLoughlin neighborhood, to try and mitigate Blue Heron's pollution. We've learned that their DEQ permit allows them to emit up to 644 tons of nitrogen oxides annually. Nitrogen oxides contribute to acid rain and react with other pollutants to form ozone. The Kyoto Protocol calls for substantial reductions in NOx. Blue Heron also releases up to 742 tons of sulfur dioxide annually. Sulfur dioxide can cause respiratory illness and aggravate cardiovascular diseases. I'm particulalry sensitive to the 313 tons of VOC's Blue Heron releases yearly. That's more than a half ton of VOC's daily. Volatile Organic Compounds are linked to cancer and a number of adverse neurological, reproductive and developmental effects.
We need to fully awaken to the reality at hand. We can't continue to rape the planet. If we don't deal with large scale industrial polluters now, when will we? Hopefully we'll harmonize our human culture with natures ways, or otherwise suffer the consequences.
Anyone out there interested in tackling the Blue heron issue with us?
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GOOD NEWS..! THAT COMPANY WAS BS WHEN I WORKED THERE.. HAHAHAHAHAHA
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I'm very sorry to hear this. On the one hand I feel sorry for people who have lost their jobs, on the other hand I feel sorry for the company which failed to survive. It is very sad. Besides, it is huge stress for the town as a lot of people became unemployed at the same time. It is bad.
Hope everything will change for the better soon. http://www.eventsearch.us
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Like it has been said a few times, this is sad news to hear. The economy has been hard on all of us but certainly within certain niches, it has been harder that most. Paper mills seem to be one of those that are getting hit pretty hard.
The hardest part about it, is that many of these people working at the mill have been there so many years and maybe even close to retirement. That will most likely cause problems with the quality of life in the later stages of life. A friend of mine was looking how to start a daycare business, because she thought that everyone needed childcare, and yet she even has been affected with the problems because when one field is affected everyone is affected. Who knows though, there was a lot of change with the government recently, with the elections. Hopefully it means that industries such as Paper Mills and the automotive industry will be on the rebound.
It is definitely something to hope for. Best wishes to all those affected in this recent layoff.
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While I agree that the move towards electronic media has reduced demand for communication paper, and the demise of manufacturing has reduced domestic demand for packaging paper, another factor is worth discussing.
In the 1980's North American forest products companies were competitive in worldwide markets. They operated under the strictest environmental and safety regulations in the world. Raw materials were subject to cutting and replanting rules, production was under air and water regulation, and worker safety was monitored by state and federal OSHA. But, the environmental movement was not satisified and pushed for additional restrictions.
Fast forward 20 years. As additional logging plans were enacted, and air or water permitting became more onerous, forest product manufacturing began leaving North America. It moved to areas with little to no regulations - China, Russia, Eastern Europe, South America.
Unfortunately, the most heavily regulated, yet still competitive, North American forest product industry was flattened by an environmental movement who could not be satisfied! What they failed to understand was that the demand for forest products would still exist, and that the production would migrate towards less regulated countries.
FYI - I spent 15 years in the paper industry, leaving when I realized that the future was bleak