Roseburg Forest Products is closing its specialty plywood operation in Riddle, Oregon, and laying off 146 workers. It’s the company’s third major layoff in the past six months. In September, Roseburg closed its hardwood plywood plant in Dillard, Oregon, 10 miles north of the Riddle plant, and laid off 107 workers. In December Roseburg closed its veneer plant in Weed, California, about 150 miles south, and laid off 140 Machinists union members.
The Riddle layoffs will take effect April 5 after the 60-day notice required under federal law. The Riddle plant will continue to produce veneer, but specialty plywood production will be handled by Roseburg’s facility in Coquille, Oregon.
Roseburg described the layoffs in a Feb. 4 announcement as “a strategic realignment of production at two Oregon mills, building on multi-year investments to modernize operations and strengthen its long-term competitive position.”
Carpenters Local 2949 represents Roseburg Forest Products workers in Dillard and Riddle. “Roseburg has done a lot of self-promotion about the $700 million investment in Douglas County and how they’re great for the community, (but) in the last six months, they’ve put 250 families on the unemployment line,” said Western States Regional Council of Carpenters union representative Brian Oelberg. “They should live up to their promises of helping out working people in Douglas County.”
Though Roseburg continues to produce lumber and medium-density fiberboard at its Dillard complex, those operations weren’t considered part of the same plant in regards to seniority rights, Oelberg said. That meant people who had spent their entire careers at Roseburg were out of luck.
In Riddle, bumping rights will apply: More senior workers who were making specialty plywood will bump less senior workers who were making veneer.
“This is a better situation for the senior folks, but it still puts 140 families out on the unemployment line,” Oelberg said. Most of the people who will lose their jobs have been with Roseburg for two years or less.
Oelberg said the layoffs and bumping rights were “chaos.” A worker who has been in the specialty plywood operation for 10 years may be able to take a position from a newer worker, but they could get stuck with 12-hour graveyard shifts that they can’t sustain while raising kids. “People work years to get to a job and a shift that they like, and this pulls the rug out, and they have to start over,” Oelberg said.
