THE REAL INTERESTS OF THE PEOPLE

WILLIAM GREEN.

Labor has a vital interest in the forests and in what happens to them. Forests mean jobs. Forest-based industries and activities support more than 2 million workers and their families in the United States loggers in the woods, workers in sawmills and planing mills and lumber yards, in pulp and paper and rayon mills and processing plants, in furniture factories, cooperage plants, box plants, in naval stores, and in other forest-products industries.

Indirectly, the forests contribute to the support of additional millions of workers railroad workers, printers, factory workers. The transportation, wholesaling, and retailing of commodities made wholly or partly from forest products mean still more jobs.

The interest of organized labor in the Nation's forests, however, goes far beyond their value as a source of employment. Workers are also consumers, and they have the same interests in a steady flow of forest products as any other consumers. They want homes; they want the things forests give that make for comfortable and pleasant living. And they want these things at prices they can afford to pay.

Workers also are interested in the recreational value of the forests. The practice of vacations and holidays with pay has become almost universal throughout American industry. Hundreds of thousands of workers spend much of their vacation and holiday leisure in the forests, picnicking, camping, hiking, hunting, and fishing. As increasing production efficiency and rising living standards bring more leisure time, the need for such recreational opportunities will grow.

Most forest industries in this country grew up on the exploitation of virgin timber. As the timber was cut out in one locality, operators moved on to another. The workers had to move on, too, or else be left jobless in a community that was apt to go into rapid decline after its principal economic support had departed.

Workers in the forest industries are no different from other people in their desire for the things that make life good. They want to live in homes of their own, rather than migrate from camp to camp. They want to bring up their children in a wholesome environment. They want to have a part in the life of their community. But they cannot look forward to these things if their jobs are based on cut-out-and-get-out operations.

A STEADY FLOW of forest products can come only from steadily producing forests. Permanent employment in all the industries and trades that depend on forest products can come only from steadily producing forests. Yet the bulk of our forest land is not being managed for steady production. Official reports show that we are taking saw timber from the forests faster than it grows. A declining resource certainly is not a basis for expanding industry and employment. It cannot continue indefinitely to support even the present level of employment and production.

Building up our forest lands to full productiveness will increase the opportunities for permanent employment. Forest improvement is a capital investment. It will furnish more security for present forest industries and the people who work in them, and will build up a resource base for additional employment.

ORGANIZED LABOR has for a long time recognized the value of a comprehensive program to conserve the Nation's timberland. Almost annually, the convention of the American Federation of Labor has gone on record as favoring the development of an over-all forestry program.

The 1946 convention of the American Federation of Labor, for example, adopted a resolution, submitted by the delegate from the Montana State Federation of Labor, that said, in part:

We favor immediate action in the development of a State and National program for all forest lands that will protect the forests from fire, insects, and disease damage; promote forestry practices that will result in full use of the productive capacity of these lands but not overuse which would bring exhaustion of usable timber at a later date; promote greater utilization of the wood products thereby eliminating waste and conserving timber supplies now available; and provide for an aggressive start on reforestation of lands now not producing anything of commercial value.

Numerous State and local affiliates of the American Federation of Labor also have actively campaigned for a program that would bring an end to the destructive cutting of the Nation's forests.

ORGANIZED LABOR continues to have great faith that the Nation's forests can make a great contribution to the welfare of the wage earners of this country. In order to achieve this objective, labor will continue to fight for the development of a program that will manage the forest land in the real interests of the people.

WILLIAM GREEN is president of the American Federation of Labor.