Earth First! Humboldt

In a letter recently published in the North Coast Journal, a former Pacific Lumber employee shares his perspective on the end days of the self destructive timber giant. Read the whole letter here.

Although Palco’s self-promotion as a company that takes care of its employees was incessant, it gave up the sustainable logging practices that would have ensured sustained employment for the workers. While giving lip service to its support for families, it stole time from them to be with their families by forcing them to work up to 56 hours a week, including Saturdays. It was all too often incredibly slow to fix certain safety problems. They reduced benefits and lowered starting wages for new employees. Morale suffered in various departments because people skills were apparently not required to become a foreman.

PL did all it could to cast dissenters and environmentalists as whiners who were out to get the jobs of loggers and lumberjacks when, in addition to wildlife protection, it was precisely the sustainability of forests and jobs that motivated the dissenters. It cynically played its power to pull the wool over the eyes of loyalists through the years with laughable slogans like the one on the huge banner stretched across the face of the administration building: “Every day for us is Earth Day.”

Here’s some footage from that era, compiled and edited by the loggers themselves.