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company. "Why? Because the programs employ overt blackmafl of the particjpants. How? If a 

 laid off* timber worker chooses to sign up for these programs, (such as junior college education), 

 and he is called bade to his old job (or any job in the timber industry) and be takes the job, he 

 loses all benefits of the program now and in the future. Why? Isn't the idea to put the 

 unemployed back to work — or is the idea to remove our employees from the timber industry 

 permanently? We have prior persoiul experience with these retraining programs. In August of 

 1994 we temporarily laid off the second shift m the planer mill while we upgraded the dry kilns, 

 this was a 3 week period only. When we called the crew back to work, 6 individuals had be«n 

 sigDed up by the social service agency for displaced timber worker retraining and refused our offer 

 to come back to work. Th^' weren't displaced timber workers, they were on temporary layoff 

 during which most of them drew vacation pay? We were forced to hire 6 new people to 6U in and 

 suffer the cost of training them for the jobs. 



I would also like to mention two other points I believe this Committee and this Congress should 

 focus on. The first is what has happened to the town of Hoquiam. Ho^jiuam was a thriving 

 community. We had the largest coQcentration of wood product compaoies in the State of 

 Washington. Today, three years into the President's Forest Plan, we are down to two stzuH 

 sawmiDs and one pulp mill. Our town as been converted from a thriviog communis to a dumpii^ 

 ground for indigent families. 



I am told that over 50 percem of the private homes in Hoqisam are now rentals. I am also told 

 that the average length of stay for the new tenants is four months. Thick of that, every four 

 months SO percent of the homes in our town have tenants leave You might ask why is ttus 



