June 1, 2006

SEIU Local 503, OPEU members make Oregon a better place to live in many ways. Think about this short list of work we do: naturalist, home health care provider, architect, mechanic, public information officer, office specialist, front line police officer and detective, animal trapper, physician, psychologist, custodian, librarian, marine biologist, writer, accountant, public transportation driver, caseworker, linguist, heavy equipment operator, botanist, firefighter, computer specialist, park ranger, economist and child care provider.

In this issue of President Joe’s Journal, check out how the special work of Oregon Department of Forestry members helps keep Oregon green. We provide vital services for our communities 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. We work in every kind of weather and condition nature or humans can devise: rain, snow, wind, flood, ice, heat, drought, fire, dangerous roads and stormy seas. We climb mountains, build roads, restore forests and handle explosives. Workers everywhere know what makes each work place special and what can be done to make it better.

    In this issue: Forestry Members Get Ready for Fire Season  Tillamook Center Showcases Determination  From Tarpaper to Timber  eNews Flash: Local Officer Training and In Memoriam

Stronger Together,
Joe DiNicola, President
SEIU Local 503, OPEU

Forestry Members Get Ready for Fire Season

Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) was founded in 1911. Nearly 600 SEIU Local 503, OPEU members at ODF serve Oregonians with the skills and experience it takes to regulate forest practices, manage 780,000 acres of state-owned forestlands, operate a 15-million-tree forest nursery, keep the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds on track and provide forestry assistance to 166,000 private woodland owners. ODF members help timber harvests, generate revenue for local governments and schools, protect wildlife habitat and manage recreation and education opportunities.

Each year, ODF workers, both permanent and seasonal, work to protect 16 million acres of private, state and federal forests in Oregon from fire. Most Oregonians enjoy the mild days and cool evenings of spring. But it may surprise you that wildfire danger isn’t far away. When winter snow pack is heavy and rainfall above average, even brief periods of spring sunshine and wind quickly dry forest vegetation. Dead grass left over from the previous fall can kindle and spread a fire in minutes.

From Baker City to Central Point, from Astoria to Lakeview and everywhere in between, whether it’s a worksite with one worker or dozens, each spring ODF members get ready to use all the stamina, skills and experience they have to protect Oregon’s beautiful and valuable forests. A small fire can cost more than $3 million, according to Dave Wells, ODF Information Officer and SEIU 503 member. He compares fire camps to small cities where crews are totally involved in fighting fires and says, "You get really divorced from reality. This is their world."

Each year before fire season begins, long-term SEIU 503 workers, newly hired seasonal or returning fire crews must pass the “pack test.” According to the ODF recruitment notice, “The ‘Pack Test’ is a valid, job related test which measures an individual's capacity for arduous work.” The test is a 3-mile hike over level terrain completed in 45 minutes carrying a 45-pound backpack. Hats off to all who train and meet this challenge!

    Workers who plan to take the test are strongly encouraged by ODF to train for arduous level work capacity for 4 to 6 weeks before the test and those over 40 or inactive are urged to consult a physician.

Tillamook Center Showcases Determination

There is one Oregon community where Forestry workers tell a fire story that is still being written. The story starts with just a spark in the northern Coast Range west of Portland on a hot August day in 1933. Maybe it was dragging the last tree to fall at the end of that day over a dry forest floor, but the inferno that spark set ablaze changed everything for Tillamook, nearby towns and every living creature in or near the forest. That 1933 fire was followed every six years by another and then another forest fire disaster; residents feared there was a curse.

    By 1951, 355,000 acres or 550 square miles had burned, some more than twice, in what was called The Tillamook Burn. Estimates put the total economic loss at more than $600 million with over 13 billion board feet of timber consumed. The region’s timber-based economy was in ruins. Formerly pristine streams choked with sediment and debris and crucial wildlife habitat burned beyond recognition. For many, the frequency and ferocity of the repeat fires consumed hope for the future.

    SEIU Local 503, OPEU member Chris Friend helps visitors enjoy the newly opened Tillamook Forest Center near Milepost 22 on Highway 6. When he says, “You shouldn’t miss the movie that depicts The Tillamook Burn,” believe him. He carefully warns visitors that the historic story can startle all the senses. From comfortable benches before the lights go down, the skeleton trees of a forest turned to ash make a stark backdrop.

Every ODF member who works at Tillamook Forest Center says the new facility has so much to offer that everyone should make a point to visit. The story of an historic forest recovery program is told in all the exhibits. After you see the movie, be sure to look out the window at the new forest surrounding the Wilson River to understand the whole story. This is the forest that caused Governor Tom McCall to sign a law in 1973 that gave the Tillamook Burn a much more accurate name: The Tillamook State Forest.

While 72 million trees planted by Forestry workers, school children, community volunteers, professionals and prison inmates in the largest-ever reforestation effort just keep growing, the end of this story is not yet written. Recent harvests of Tillamook State Forest trees begin a whole new chapter and remind us, “Together, there is nothing we can’t accomplish.”

From Tarpaper to Timber

Oregon taxpayers understood the Tillamook Burn would devastate vital communities when they voted for $12 million in bonds in 1948. In 1949, the Oregon State Board of Forestry launched the Tillamook Burn Rehabilitation Program and a law to create “Work Camps” was drafted. The plan called for inmate labor to help restore hope and a ruined economy in the devastated forest.

South Fork Forest Camp (SFFC) was built to house inmates who would help with Tillamook Burn restoration. The first buildings at the camp were built at the Oregon State Penitentiary, trucked-in and set up along the original stagecoach route between Forest Grove and Tillamook. South Fork is still located deep in the Wilson River valley on Oregon Highway 6, almost midway between the old stagecoach stops.

The original trucked-in cabins were very primitive with tar paper walls, no plumbing, no heat and not much comfort for inmates; fifteen occupied each cabin in the blackened forest. Today’s cabins are wood construction, fully plumbed with showers and forced-air heat. Wood stoves heated the cabins until gas furnaces were retrofitted in 1996 to reduce wood consumption. Twelve inmates live in each cabin now. The sentence that brings most inmates to camp is still the same: "fight fires."

Each day, 17 SEIU 503 workers can use an ODF vanpool to get to work at South Fork. Fifteen ODF Forest Inmate Crew Coordinators, an office coordinator and a general maintenance mechanic make up the entire SEIU Local 503, OPEU roster at SFFC. Crew Coordinator Jesse Backman gave me and other visitors a brief but enthusiastic tour of the 45-acre camp as inmates relaxed after their work shifts. On any given day, each SEIU 503 Crew Coordinator at South Fork supervises and trains up to ten inmates as crews plant, thin, limb or harvest trees, maintain roads and trails, trap beaver or fight fires.

Two hundred inmates from Oregon’s minimum-security work camp program live at this unusual SEIU 503 worksite. South Fork and the training SEIU 503 members provide is often the first opportunity inmates have ever had to learn work skills. Firefighting work also helps teach positive teamwork. Fires arise year round so SEIU Crew Coordinators and work camp inmates are ready to fight fires from January to December.

To reach South Fork, visitors follow a winding gravel road alongside a restored Oregon stream. Still managed by the Oregon Department of Corrections and ODF partnership, the steep, fire-ravaged slopes of SFFC have been transformed. Today’s vibrant green hills seem more like a setting for summer camp. Thanks to the work of SEIU 503 Forestry workers, inmates at the unfenced camp helped bring the forest back to life; the inmates become highly trained and fit professionals when it comes to forest management.

Inmate Crew Coordinator Jesse Backman says Corrections officers who accompany work crews monitor security and supervise inmate behavior. That gives Forestry workers the chance to get rest periods when on fire duty. Jesse says, “To understand the close partnership between ODF and Corrections at South Fork, just look at the physical layout of the administration building. Corrections staff work in offices right next to Forestry staff. It isn’t possible to see any difference between agencies in this building.”

A corrections officer on duty says the mutual respect between members of his Corrections union and SEIU's ODF members as vital to help inmates learn about work and how to become productive members of the community. As I wait for a small herd of elk to cross the road so I can leave camp, it’s clear that South Fork is no ordinary worksite for SEIU Local 503, OPEU members. The inmate crews they train protect and restore forests. Together, they are bringing timber back to the Wilson River.

    Once Oregon fire season begins, schedules and work locations get very unpredictable, so Forestry workers all over Oregon will be among the first to fill out 2007-2009 Bargaining Surveys. Be sure to complete your bargaining survey right away. It’s your contract on the line.

E-News Flash

Local Officer Training: SEIU Local 503, OPEU provides training for Local Officers. One session will be held Saturday, June 3 in Portland, another is scheduled for Saturday, June 17 in Bend. So far, nearly 100 officers have said they will attend the June 3 session. Please contact your organizer to sign up. In Memoriam: Ben Isenberg was killed in Iraq September 13, 2004 while serving with the Oregon National Guard. Ben was a forest officer on a Dallas fire crew in 2001 and 2002. Ben worked at South Fork Forest Camp as an Inmate Crew Coordinator from March 2003 until his deployment to Iraq. His wife, Rachel, and two sons, Jeremiah and Kraig, survive Ben. We honor his memory.