KLAMATH DOOR COMPANY
Klamath County - south of Klamath Falls on Highway 97
Site previously used by Ralph L. Smith Lumber Company
March 15, 1951: "Klamath Door Co. remained strikebound today in a dispute over wage scales between Local 2511, AFL lumber workers, and the company management.
Employes quit work yesterday morning and set up a picket line.
A strike committee composed of Virgil Smith, J. D. Richerson and Homer Calloway, along with union business agent Gene Tedrick, listed the union's grievances as:
1) A company demand for a vacation clause stipulating that time lost in excess of 30 days in a year be subtracted from vacation time on a pro-rata basis.
2) A company demand that in case of a strike all lumber standing in cars or trucks be unloaded.
3) A union claim that wages paid by Klamath Door are substandard.
In negotiations Tuesday night the union's committee signed an agreement for a 7 1/2-cent hourly pay increase, which the AFL and Pine Industrial Relations committee recommended for all AFL lumber workers in this area. The agreement read that the 7 1/2-cents was in full settlement of all pending wage claims.
On the other two matters, the union committee was to confer with the union membership.
A spokesman for the company said the vacation clause was in many union contracts in this area and was designed to forestall counting time spent on strike as time worked in computing vacations.
The second complaint listed by the union, was a matter regarding storage of products (sash and door) already made to prevent deterioration during a strike or work stoppage.
As for the third issue, wages, the company said its only direct competitor in this area was Long-Bell at Weed, and it had agreed to apply for approval to use here the same wage structure used at the Long-Bell plant, which also has an AFL contract with a different local.
Striking workers say a wage scale based on that of Long-Bell is not what they want. They say living costs are higher in Klamath Falls than in Weed and they should get more money.
In it behalf, the company points out it was organized and started operations only a few months ago and thereby created some 25 jobs here that didn't exist before: that it imported no outside workers and has been engaged in training present employes in sash and door work.
The 7 1/2-cent raise, incidentally, is subject to approval by the Wage Stabilization Board or other proper governmental agency.
Federal conciliation had been requested but the strike came off before a conciliator was assigned." (Herald and News)
Employes quit work yesterday morning and set up a picket line.
A strike committee composed of Virgil Smith, J. D. Richerson and Homer Calloway, along with union business agent Gene Tedrick, listed the union's grievances as:
1) A company demand for a vacation clause stipulating that time lost in excess of 30 days in a year be subtracted from vacation time on a pro-rata basis.
2) A company demand that in case of a strike all lumber standing in cars or trucks be unloaded.
3) A union claim that wages paid by Klamath Door are substandard.
In negotiations Tuesday night the union's committee signed an agreement for a 7 1/2-cent hourly pay increase, which the AFL and Pine Industrial Relations committee recommended for all AFL lumber workers in this area. The agreement read that the 7 1/2-cents was in full settlement of all pending wage claims.
On the other two matters, the union committee was to confer with the union membership.
A spokesman for the company said the vacation clause was in many union contracts in this area and was designed to forestall counting time spent on strike as time worked in computing vacations.
The second complaint listed by the union, was a matter regarding storage of products (sash and door) already made to prevent deterioration during a strike or work stoppage.
As for the third issue, wages, the company said its only direct competitor in this area was Long-Bell at Weed, and it had agreed to apply for approval to use here the same wage structure used at the Long-Bell plant, which also has an AFL contract with a different local.
Striking workers say a wage scale based on that of Long-Bell is not what they want. They say living costs are higher in Klamath Falls than in Weed and they should get more money.
In it behalf, the company points out it was organized and started operations only a few months ago and thereby created some 25 jobs here that didn't exist before: that it imported no outside workers and has been engaged in training present employes in sash and door work.
The 7 1/2-cent raise, incidentally, is subject to approval by the Wage Stabilization Board or other proper governmental agency.
Federal conciliation had been requested but the strike came off before a conciliator was assigned." (Herald and News)
March 23, 1951: "A strike of employes at Klamath Door Co. was still on today, settling down to a stalemate between the company and members of the AFL lumber and sawmill workers.
The strike started a week ago last Wednesday.
Red Shepro, plant superintendent, said the office was open but no machinery going. The workers have a picket line at the plant.
About 25 men walked off the job in a dispute over wages after agreeing to a 7 1/2-cent pay book extended other AFL lumber workers in the Klamath area. They want 15 cents hourly in addition, claiming the scale is low for sash and window work.
The company has offered to meet the scale paid for similar work by the Long-Bell plant in Weed." (Herald and News)
The strike started a week ago last Wednesday.
Red Shepro, plant superintendent, said the office was open but no machinery going. The workers have a picket line at the plant.
About 25 men walked off the job in a dispute over wages after agreeing to a 7 1/2-cent pay book extended other AFL lumber workers in the Klamath area. They want 15 cents hourly in addition, claiming the scale is low for sash and window work.
The company has offered to meet the scale paid for similar work by the Long-Bell plant in Weed." (Herald and News)
April 6, 1951: "The recent shutdown at Klamath Door Co. in the face of a strike by employes for a higher wage scale points up one fact the lumber industry and persons who depend on the industry for a living must face:
Remanufacturing is not the hell-for-leather boom industry logging and rough board sawmilling is...or has been.
To recapitulate a little, Klamath Door opened for business six months ago, taking over quarters previously occupied by the Ralph L. Smith Lumber Co. The Smith outfit closed its Klamath Falls plant and moved out because its timber supply was running low.
The idea of the door company was to try something a little bit different, processing lumber here into a finished product rather than shipping boards out to be processed somewhere else.
Such business is called rather obscurely, remanufacturing.
Klamath Door was going to buy lumber from local mills, put more machinery and men and hours to work on it and make a finished product for sale as well as provide a payroll to in some measure take the place of one that vanished when the Ralph L. Smith plant closed.
The company was in business until Mar. 14 when its employes, through their union, struck for higher wages. The claim was that the scale paid was substandard for the industry. After a couple of weeks of strike, the company owners announced they had decided they couldn't accede to the demand for higher pay---in other words, keep up with the scale in logging and sawmilling---and ever hope to make a profit.
They closed up the plant. Some 25 or 30 persons lost their jobs and Klamath Falls lost what potentially was a tidy payroll industry.
Now whether the union's request for a higher wage scale was actually and basically the cause of the decision to quit business---is something to argue about. Probably there were other great contributing circumstances: cost of materials, general efficiency of the shop and of management, demand for the product.
But remanufacturing, which encompasses again and again as much time and work spent on a given footage of lumber as does logging and sawmilling, has a serious labor factor to consider.
The Western Pine Assoc. has turned out some interesting figures that point up the contention that labor and time costs are much more of a problem to a remanufacturing industry than to logging and sawmilling. These are some:
In a year's time 3.4 men can cut a million feet of logs.
In a year's time 3.25 men can rough saw that million feet, and another 1.75 men can plane it. So by Western Pine figures, 8.4 men in a years work can get a million feet of lumber ready for the board market.
But to make box shook out of that million board feet of lumber 7.5 men must work a year: mill working that amount of lumber takes 15 men a year; manufacturing furniture out of that million board feet takes 80 men a year.
As the work gets more complicated, the time it takes to do increases. As the time increases, so does the labor cost factor.
There can be little argument that the boom days of sawmilling here are over. Mills in this immediate are had an 800,000,000-foot cut in 1941, and just a 400,000,000-foot average annual cut in 1946-48.
To replace that lost payroll such agencies as the Chamber of Commerce have been seeking to entice remanufacturing plants to locate here. The plan is to get more man hours and consequently more payroll dollars, from the remaining timber supply. Last winter a freight rate change was authorized to lessen the cost of shipping lumber into this area for remanufacturing.
It would seem that remanufacturing is Klamath Falls' answer to it economic problem.
But the experience of Klamath Door Co. might cause possible locators to think otherwise." by Hale Scarbrough (Herald and News)
Remanufacturing is not the hell-for-leather boom industry logging and rough board sawmilling is...or has been.
To recapitulate a little, Klamath Door opened for business six months ago, taking over quarters previously occupied by the Ralph L. Smith Lumber Co. The Smith outfit closed its Klamath Falls plant and moved out because its timber supply was running low.
The idea of the door company was to try something a little bit different, processing lumber here into a finished product rather than shipping boards out to be processed somewhere else.
Such business is called rather obscurely, remanufacturing.
Klamath Door was going to buy lumber from local mills, put more machinery and men and hours to work on it and make a finished product for sale as well as provide a payroll to in some measure take the place of one that vanished when the Ralph L. Smith plant closed.
The company was in business until Mar. 14 when its employes, through their union, struck for higher wages. The claim was that the scale paid was substandard for the industry. After a couple of weeks of strike, the company owners announced they had decided they couldn't accede to the demand for higher pay---in other words, keep up with the scale in logging and sawmilling---and ever hope to make a profit.
They closed up the plant. Some 25 or 30 persons lost their jobs and Klamath Falls lost what potentially was a tidy payroll industry.
Now whether the union's request for a higher wage scale was actually and basically the cause of the decision to quit business---is something to argue about. Probably there were other great contributing circumstances: cost of materials, general efficiency of the shop and of management, demand for the product.
But remanufacturing, which encompasses again and again as much time and work spent on a given footage of lumber as does logging and sawmilling, has a serious labor factor to consider.
The Western Pine Assoc. has turned out some interesting figures that point up the contention that labor and time costs are much more of a problem to a remanufacturing industry than to logging and sawmilling. These are some:
In a year's time 3.4 men can cut a million feet of logs.
In a year's time 3.25 men can rough saw that million feet, and another 1.75 men can plane it. So by Western Pine figures, 8.4 men in a years work can get a million feet of lumber ready for the board market.
But to make box shook out of that million board feet of lumber 7.5 men must work a year: mill working that amount of lumber takes 15 men a year; manufacturing furniture out of that million board feet takes 80 men a year.
As the work gets more complicated, the time it takes to do increases. As the time increases, so does the labor cost factor.
There can be little argument that the boom days of sawmilling here are over. Mills in this immediate are had an 800,000,000-foot cut in 1941, and just a 400,000,000-foot average annual cut in 1946-48.
To replace that lost payroll such agencies as the Chamber of Commerce have been seeking to entice remanufacturing plants to locate here. The plan is to get more man hours and consequently more payroll dollars, from the remaining timber supply. Last winter a freight rate change was authorized to lessen the cost of shipping lumber into this area for remanufacturing.
It would seem that remanufacturing is Klamath Falls' answer to it economic problem.
But the experience of Klamath Door Co. might cause possible locators to think otherwise." by Hale Scarbrough (Herald and News)
Site use to: Southern Pacific Plywood Company