Scope and content:

The 3019 Record Group has some of the most complete records in the collection, possibly because the local was also the shortest lived of the local unions represented. The Local began life as the Georgia-Pacific (G-P) Plywood Unit of Local 3006 in 1959 and was "spun off" to form its own local after a period of dissension within Local 3006, which culminated in a successful IWA raid on its Simpson Arcata Remanufacturing Plant Unit.

The minutes are complete from its organization as a unit of Local 3006 soon after the plant was built until the plant closure in 1977. The minutes of the G-P Plywood Unit of the 3006 period were found together with the succeeding Local 3019 minutes and have been arranged with them. They deal primarily with G-P Plywood but also show the dissension within the overall local. There are also minutes of the short-lived Briceland unit that barely survived Local 3019's first year. Women worked at G-P Plywood from the plant's first opening in 1959 and various women's issues are chronicled throughout the run of minutes.

There are no correspondence files from the 3006 unit period and all coorespondence files before 1964 are limited. The correspondence with G-P/L-P are contained in a separate Company Communications Series, but as is the usual case in this collection, much of the substance of union/company interaction can be found in the Plant Committee Minutes and Notes Series.

The Grievance Series has grievance forms dating to the very beginning of the 3006 unit period. There is a full verbatim transcript, Arbitrator's Opinion and Award in the Terry Semore Case, and a handwriting analysis report file on the Moreno grievance.

The Organizing Series documents the difficulties in organizing new operations that unions encountered during the 1970s, with three lost elections and one plant closure after the election was won at the Standard Veneer Company. This file contains an interesting analysis balancing the advantages and disadvantages to the local of expanding by organizing a second unit.

The Cottage Gardens Nursery Organizing files are by far the most detailed organizing files in the entire collection and should be used in conjunction with the files in the Ray Nelson Series in the RDC-M Collection. The material thoroughly documents an attempt to organize workers outside the lumber industry through the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

The Subject Files Series contains several files on the effort to stop the Redwood Park expansion and plant shutdown in 1977.

Biographical / historical:

Local 3019 began as the Georgia-Pacific Samoa Plywood Unit of Local 3006 with its first meeting held September 12, 1959. The unit was caught up in the internal disaffections within Local 3006 which lead to the loss of the large Simpson Arcata unit to the IWA in early 1961.

The problems within 3006 lead to a reversal of the long standing RDC practice of merging small locals into large multi-employer locals. The Georgia-Pacific Samoa Plywood Unit together with a short lived Georgia-Pacific Veneer operation in Briceland were spun off from Local 3006 to form Local 3019 on March 11, 1961.

A labor shortage lead to the hiring of women when the plant first opened in 1959 and there were a number of grievances over womens' issues. The local took part in the Big Six strike of 1963, (see 2789 Historical Sketch for details) and then settled into a pattern of mature, relatively peaceful collective bargaining.

By the mid-1970's recurrent log shortages and increasing volatility in the plywood market led to frequent lay offs and curtailments. The local was an active participant in demonstrations and political activity in opposition to the expansion of the Redwood National Park and the plant closure in the Fall of 1979 was blamed directly on the park by Georgia-Pacific.

The mid-1970's saw the locals engaged in a number of organizing campaigns all of which ended in National Labor Relations Board election defeats or failure to win a contract. The Cottage Gardens Nursery organizing effort was an unusual attempt by an LSW local to organize workers through the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board. The company successfully stalled off a contract after 3019's election victory in 1976, until the unit was lost during the confusion attendant on the closure of the plywood plant in late 1977. This is the best documented organizing campaign in the entire collection.

Local 3019 Financial Secretaries/ Business Representatives:

• 1961 -1962 Calvin Barnett
• 1962 -1972 Roy Clement
• 1972 -1974 Floyd McBride
• 1974 -1977Clarence Cornwell

Physical description:

9 cubic feet

Contents

Access and use