Ellen Engstedt - November 21, 2005
Montana Wood Products Association
Time for Reflection
KUFM COMMENTARY – NOVEMBER 21, 2005
Thanksgiving is a time for reflection. It is a time to be grateful for the resources and the bounty bestowed upon each of us in our society provided for and protected by those who steadfastly stand for the cause of freedom. Thanksgiving also is a time to ponder the future and hopefully face those days with lessons learned from the past.
A number of news pieces have appeared in the last few days that should grab our attention. The first detailed a report called “Searching for Work That Pays: 2005 Job Gap Study” released by a Seattle-based group the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations along with the Montana People’s Action. According to this study about 40 percent of all the jobs offered in Montana pay less than the $9 an hour needed for a person to enjoy a “living wage”.
The study defined a “living wage” as enough money to pay the costs of child care, health care, housing, food, transportation, utilities, including only local phone service, and a small savings. Apparently even the $9 an hour jobs are hard to come by with five applicants for each available position. This computes to earnings of just under $19,000 annually. It is a far cry from the average salary of a timber worker who earns about $16 an hour and $36,000 a year or a mining job paying $55,000 annually.
In the next article of interest a story related that nearly two-thirds of all loggers in Idaho, Washington, and Montana are 40 years old or older and that the profession is not attracting younger workers. This statistic is very alarming to the rural areas that rely on the timber community for their existence. The reasons for the decline in timber workers are varied, but two highly visible reasons are skyrocketing insurance costs and fewer timber sales on federal land. The high costs of doing business could be managed if a sustainable amount of timber could be harvested without frivolous appeals and lawsuits.
There is a pride in working in a natural resource job that provides a decent wage and supports a family. However, so many of our younger folks have been discouraged from entering the fields of timber, mining, and even agriculture because they are being told those are jobs without a future even though they produce the commodities we all use every day. A value-added economy is the one we should strive for because that is the economy that produces a product and has a multiplier effect on the rest of the community.
Other news is filled with stories about the need to donate to our local food banks, toy drives and other good and worthy causes. As citizens we in Montana come in at 23rd nationwide in our giving to our neighbors and to our communities. We should be proud of that, but we should also be ashamed of the fact that we have allowed well-paying jobs with benefits to be diminished. Just think what the case might be if the new age economists would encourage resource development instead of trying to undermine it at every step.
The crisis in school funding is also in the headlines every day with the call for the State to put up more and more money for education. I don’t know who some think “the State” is but I know it is those of us who pay taxes and whose property taxes have risen every year in an attempt to fill the gap made by businesses relocating or simply ceasing to exist because of an extreme anti-business attitude among some in Montana.
It is difficult to know what the future will be for any of us, but those of us in the timber community hold out hope for better days ahead. We will continue to encourage young folks to enter a field where there is still pride in producing a product and in a job well done. We will continue to be stewards of the land that we cherish for our livelihoods and our recreation. We will continue to pay our taxes and in other ways contribute to those with needs in our communities.
We will live our lives with gratitude and be thankful for our loved ones. On behalf of the families of the Montana Wood Products Association, I’m Ellen Engstedt wishing you a blessed and peaceful Thanksgiving. Thanks for listening.
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