Strike In South Spurs Walkout

Boise Cascade Corp. mills in Cascade and Emmett have been idled as union workers walk the picket lines in sympathy for a strike at the company’s Louisiana plants.

Nearly 900 workers at the plywood plants in Oakdale, Florien and Fisher, La., walked off their jobs last week in a contract dispute. The current contract expired July 16.

About 430 union workers in Cascade and Emmett refused to work on Monday, said Jim Weathers, manager of Idaho Region operations for the Boise-based company’s Cascade Timber and Wood Products Division.

The Horseshoe Bend plant is nonunion and production continues.

“I hope it’s of a short duration,” Weathers said. “It is mostly shut down. We’re doing a little work with our salaried people, a little bit of shipping.

“It presents some problems in getting the logs and getting the finished product out. The longer it goes, the more problems that presents.”

Union people also walked out at five Boise Cascade plants in Oregon and Washington, Weathers said.

“I know they must be far apart in negotiations because … they wouldn’t fly 2,000 miles to come over here and want us to honor their pickets,” said Lou Foruria, president of Western Council of Industrial Workers Local No. 2816 and a worker at the Emmett plant.

The current contract for the Idaho workers is up in 1998.