Longview — Weyerhaeuser Co. workers in Washington and Oregon overwhelmingly voted this month to give its union strike authority — the first step before employees stop working due to disagreements about what the union says is low pay and benefits during the company’s self-described record-breaking earnings.
Brandon Bryant, the district business representative for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Woodworkers District Lodge W24, said more than 80% of its more than 1,100 members turned out for the vote, resulting in an “overwhelming” rejection of Weyerhaeuser’s contract proposal and the approval of a possible strike.
About 350 Longview employees are represented locally by the Woodworkers Local 536 union under the umbrella of the IAMAW while the vote also included employees in Aberdeen and Raymond in Washington and Coos Bay, Springfield and Cottage Grove in Oregon for 14 contracts total.
No date has been set for a strike, but no further contract talks were scheduled as of Monday afternoon, Bryant added.
“We are not on strike yet, but could be any day now,” he said.
A non-union representative from Weyerhaeuser did not return phone calls or emails by Monday’s print deadline to discuss their side of negotiations.
Bryant said the latest contract was voted down because general wage increases were too low; some vacation time was cut; employees were asked to pay for healthcare premiums for the first time since at least around the 1990s; and retirement benefits weren’t improved.
Weyerhaeuser reported its “2021 financial performance was the strongest on record,” and a roughly 69% increase in net earnings from 2020 to 2021, according to a January press release. Bryant said the workers should be thanked for that success.
“Those profits don’t happen unless the work happens, and the work only happens if our members do it,” he said in a statement. “We may have to take that work away from Weyerhaeuser, in order for them to see us, see our value, see the actual people that make their profits.”
Bryant said the collective bargaining agreement between the union and company expired May 31, and the two parties have been in negotiations since April.
He said Weyerhaeuser’s latest proposal for its four-year contract included positives — like axing the company’s reductions on sick leave payouts — but “came nowhere close to what our members wanted or deserve.”
Bryant said the union OK’d to possibly go on strike three times within the last decade, but didn’t stop working because negotiations for a new contract restarted, and the last actual strike was in 1986. He said the results of the vote were tallied on Sept. 2 and typically the union has heard from Weyerhaeuser within this time frame to return to the table.
The union represents employees who are sawmill workers, log yard scalers and equipment operators, mechanical loggers, and log truck drivers, as well as maintenance, mechanical, and electrical workers.
