Archive Report
Archive Report
In the Pacific Northwest
New Labor Negotiations After Hard Times
“Every woods-worker who ever barked a shin or broke a finger [believes] it's one dirty, tough, miserable way to live. That it's about as dangerous a way to make your bacon as you can find. That sometimes you'd be better off chuckin' the whole scene and just flopping down on the ground.” In Ken Kesey's novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, Hank Stamper is sympathizing with his younger half-brother, just arrived in Oregon from Yale to lug a heavy choker chain across a mountainside from fallen tree to fallen tree. Hank loves his work—despite its cruelty—but he has little love for the union that wants his family firm of independent loggers to join their strike.
As the Pacific ...