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Studies in Environment and History
Empire of Timber: Labor Unions and the Pacific Northwest Forests
The battles to protect ancient forests and spotted owls in the Northwest splashed across the evening news in the 1980s and early 1990s. Empire of Timber re-examines this history to demonstrate that workers used their unions to fight for a healthy workplace environment and sustainable logging practices that would allow themselves and future generations the chance to both work and play in the forests. Examining labor organizations from the Industrial Workers of the World in the 1910s to unions in the 1980s, Empire of Timber shows that conventional narratives of workers opposing environmental protection are far too simplistic and often ignore the long histories of natural resource industry workers attempting to protect their health and their futures from the impact of industrial logging. Today, when workers fear that environmental restrictions threaten their jobs, learning the history of alliances between unions and environmentalists can build those conversations in the present.
247 pages, Hardcover
First published October 31, 2015
6 people are currently reading
184 people want to read
About the author
Erik Loomis
7 books40 followersErik Loomis is an associate professor of history at the University of Rhode Island. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns, and Money on labor and environmental issues past and present. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Dissent, and the New Republic. The author of Out of Sight and A History of America in Ten Strikes (both from The New Press) as well as Empire of Timber, he lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 10, 2022
Read this for a paper, and particularly appreciated the Wobbly and communist social history threaded into this work of forest history. Very interesting read.
In Empire of Timber, Erik Loomis focuses on the Pacific Northwest from the 1910s to 1980s, highlighting relations between environmentalists and labour unions organizing within the forestry industry. The principal contribution here is the way Loomis fills gaps in forest history which have not adequately addressed the role of labour unions in shaping both forests and the timber industry, and their interactions with environmentalism more broadly.
Loomis’ examination of organized labour and its interactions with environmentalists in twentieth century Pacific Northwest forests offers an interesting example of how both groups were able to further common goals surrounding forest protection. Fire protection and suppression became a shared objective of both unions seeking worker protections from workplace dangers and environmentalists protecting trees from forest fires. While both unions and environmentalists came to single out clearcutting as a practice leading to more fires, logging companies would also try to leverage fires for their own agendas. Fires were prevalent in early twentieth century sawmills, where sawdust could easily combust from sparks flying off mill engines. Companies would often blame fires on radical unions like the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), who they charged with arson. Loomis by attending to the agency of organized workers as a force for forest protection, offers an excellent case of workers allying with environmentalists to hold companies responsible for reducing the threat of wildfires.
The account of Pacific Northwest reforestation by Loomis is a particularly interesting case from the twentieth century that offers a more contemporary example of less recognized forces involved in practices of silviculture. In 1939, Harold Pritchett—a Canadian communist and president of the International Woodworkers of America (IWA)—was demanding that the government implement a reforestation program, which could hire unemployed loggers and secure timber resources for future woodworkers. Industry publications pushed back against the need for replanting, claiming forests would naturally regenerate themselves and such reforestation projects were unnecessary. The timber industry would not commit to reforestation, and most replanting work was contracted out by forestry officials in the government. Around 10,000 workers were contracted each year, many of whom were migrant workers from Mexico or other parts of Latin America. They worked under weak labour protections, corrupt employers, and numerous workplace hazards. Starting in the late 1960s, young University of Oregon students from countercultural, hippie, and New Left scenes around Eugene, Oregon, were increasingly employed by tree planting contractors to fill these spots. These young workers began forming reforestation cooperatives, like the Hoedads, and became an important force in Pacific Northwest forest transformations in the 1970s and 1980s. Workplace hazards faced by reforestation workers, such as herbicide poisoning, formed the context of traditional labour unions allying with reforestation cooperatives. This approach by Loomis presents an interesting case where working class organizations were not at odds with environmentalists, but strategically allied with them over common objectives of reforestation and protection from herbicide exposure.
Finally, Loomis offers a fascinating portrayal of how radical anti-capitalist unions like the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) came to organize loggers in the Northwest, and the way environmental movements came to interact with these labour movements to advance agendas for reforestation and against clearcutting and herbicides. Loomis notes that the core of the IWW were radicals committed to revolution and the overthrow of capitalism, but that their greatest successes came when they focused on dealing with environmental inequalities that workers faced, including unsanitary conditions and greater exposures to hazardous substances and environments. However, the IWW made great efforts to persuade workers that capitalism was responsible for their unsanitary and miserable working environments. Later the International Woodworkers of America (IWA), likewise led by radicals like the communist Harold Pritchett, organized around health issues including hand damage from prolonged chainsaw use, hearing damage, bodily injuries, and various cancers caused by wood dust exposure [note: the latter is something I want to read more about; exactly how wood dust exposure is linked to Adenocarcinoma, nasal cancer (the most common), lung cancer, and Hodgkin’s disease, and the extent we can reconstruct the frequency of these conditions in the 19th century]. Environmental and labour organizing, here, often revolved around critiques of capitalist political economy and the toll it took on both workers and forest environments.
Loomis in Empire of Timber makes a strong contribution to the field of environmental history, particularly where the literature intersects with labour history, an area that Loomis recognizes is lacking in forest history. His focus on the twentieth century Pacific Northwest is an excellent window into thematic terrain that is also common to studies of traditional empire. Here, Loomis is focused on contestations between organized labour and capitalism, and examines how radical unions like the IWW and IWA came to ally with environmentalists to advocate for fire suppression measures, the end of clearcutting, more reforestation initiatives, and workplace protections from illness, chemicals, carcinogenic dust exposure, and a wide variety of other injuries. Loomis offers a fascinating account of the complexities and contradictions that emerged between radical union organizers, capitalist industry, environmentalists, and a diverse body of workers—from woodcutters to countercultural tree planters. He makes an important contribution here towards advancing understandings of how interactions between environmental and labour activists came to shape and be shaped by forest environments.
I’ll finish with one excerpt I found particularly fascinating:
“Perhaps the Wobblies’ decline is best summed up in an IWW article by California Publicity Man subtitled, “Saddest feature is the apathy of the workers,” blaming company spies for the union’s inability to organize the redwood workers.
A few workers maintained a radical stance by operating cooperatively owned mills on socialist principles. One started in Ballard, Washington, in 1917, surviving until 1931. Forty workers collectively ran the mill. Despite their radicalism, they needed loans to operate, which meant they had to rely on a capitalist banking system. They believed they had paid off most of the loan by 1931, but the bank claimed they had only paid the interest and refused to advance them any additional money to buy logs, bankrupting them. One worker wrote that this would never happen under a Soviet system, remarking “this should prove to workers that they can never expect to own anything under the capitalist system. The only way is to take control of the mills, mines, and shops, the whole state and government, and run them in the interest of the workers; not for bosses and bankers.””
In Empire of Timber, Erik Loomis focuses on the Pacific Northwest from the 1910s to 1980s, highlighting relations between environmentalists and labour unions organizing within the forestry industry. The principal contribution here is the way Loomis fills gaps in forest history which have not adequately addressed the role of labour unions in shaping both forests and the timber industry, and their interactions with environmentalism more broadly.
Loomis’ examination of organized labour and its interactions with environmentalists in twentieth century Pacific Northwest forests offers an interesting example of how both groups were able to further common goals surrounding forest protection. Fire protection and suppression became a shared objective of both unions seeking worker protections from workplace dangers and environmentalists protecting trees from forest fires. While both unions and environmentalists came to single out clearcutting as a practice leading to more fires, logging companies would also try to leverage fires for their own agendas. Fires were prevalent in early twentieth century sawmills, where sawdust could easily combust from sparks flying off mill engines. Companies would often blame fires on radical unions like the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), who they charged with arson. Loomis by attending to the agency of organized workers as a force for forest protection, offers an excellent case of workers allying with environmentalists to hold companies responsible for reducing the threat of wildfires.
The account of Pacific Northwest reforestation by Loomis is a particularly interesting case from the twentieth century that offers a more contemporary example of less recognized forces involved in practices of silviculture. In 1939, Harold Pritchett—a Canadian communist and president of the International Woodworkers of America (IWA)—was demanding that the government implement a reforestation program, which could hire unemployed loggers and secure timber resources for future woodworkers. Industry publications pushed back against the need for replanting, claiming forests would naturally regenerate themselves and such reforestation projects were unnecessary. The timber industry would not commit to reforestation, and most replanting work was contracted out by forestry officials in the government. Around 10,000 workers were contracted each year, many of whom were migrant workers from Mexico or other parts of Latin America. They worked under weak labour protections, corrupt employers, and numerous workplace hazards. Starting in the late 1960s, young University of Oregon students from countercultural, hippie, and New Left scenes around Eugene, Oregon, were increasingly employed by tree planting contractors to fill these spots. These young workers began forming reforestation cooperatives, like the Hoedads, and became an important force in Pacific Northwest forest transformations in the 1970s and 1980s. Workplace hazards faced by reforestation workers, such as herbicide poisoning, formed the context of traditional labour unions allying with reforestation cooperatives. This approach by Loomis presents an interesting case where working class organizations were not at odds with environmentalists, but strategically allied with them over common objectives of reforestation and protection from herbicide exposure.
Finally, Loomis offers a fascinating portrayal of how radical anti-capitalist unions like the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) came to organize loggers in the Northwest, and the way environmental movements came to interact with these labour movements to advance agendas for reforestation and against clearcutting and herbicides. Loomis notes that the core of the IWW were radicals committed to revolution and the overthrow of capitalism, but that their greatest successes came when they focused on dealing with environmental inequalities that workers faced, including unsanitary conditions and greater exposures to hazardous substances and environments. However, the IWW made great efforts to persuade workers that capitalism was responsible for their unsanitary and miserable working environments. Later the International Woodworkers of America (IWA), likewise led by radicals like the communist Harold Pritchett, organized around health issues including hand damage from prolonged chainsaw use, hearing damage, bodily injuries, and various cancers caused by wood dust exposure [note: the latter is something I want to read more about; exactly how wood dust exposure is linked to Adenocarcinoma, nasal cancer (the most common), lung cancer, and Hodgkin’s disease, and the extent we can reconstruct the frequency of these conditions in the 19th century]. Environmental and labour organizing, here, often revolved around critiques of capitalist political economy and the toll it took on both workers and forest environments.
Loomis in Empire of Timber makes a strong contribution to the field of environmental history, particularly where the literature intersects with labour history, an area that Loomis recognizes is lacking in forest history. His focus on the twentieth century Pacific Northwest is an excellent window into thematic terrain that is also common to studies of traditional empire. Here, Loomis is focused on contestations between organized labour and capitalism, and examines how radical unions like the IWW and IWA came to ally with environmentalists to advocate for fire suppression measures, the end of clearcutting, more reforestation initiatives, and workplace protections from illness, chemicals, carcinogenic dust exposure, and a wide variety of other injuries. Loomis offers a fascinating account of the complexities and contradictions that emerged between radical union organizers, capitalist industry, environmentalists, and a diverse body of workers—from woodcutters to countercultural tree planters. He makes an important contribution here towards advancing understandings of how interactions between environmental and labour activists came to shape and be shaped by forest environments.
I’ll finish with one excerpt I found particularly fascinating:
“Perhaps the Wobblies’ decline is best summed up in an IWW article by California Publicity Man subtitled, “Saddest feature is the apathy of the workers,” blaming company spies for the union’s inability to organize the redwood workers.
A few workers maintained a radical stance by operating cooperatively owned mills on socialist principles. One started in Ballard, Washington, in 1917, surviving until 1931. Forty workers collectively ran the mill. Despite their radicalism, they needed loans to operate, which meant they had to rely on a capitalist banking system. They believed they had paid off most of the loan by 1931, but the bank claimed they had only paid the interest and refused to advance them any additional money to buy logs, bankrupting them. One worker wrote that this would never happen under a Soviet system, remarking “this should prove to workers that they can never expect to own anything under the capitalist system. The only way is to take control of the mills, mines, and shops, the whole state and government, and run them in the interest of the workers; not for bosses and bankers.””
June 29, 2025
Solid blending of labor and environmental history to tell the story of how timber workers were shaped by and in turn shaped the development of the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest. Puts the “jobs vs. environment” debate in a historical context and shows how it was really a product of specific economic developments and corporate policies in the 70s and 80s, rather than the timeless contradiction it is often made out to be.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews