Forming TPA: Mechanization meant a safer industry

The cover of the November 1946 issue of The Timber Bulletin portrayed a team of horses skidding logs out of the woods at a camp in Koochiching County. The Timber Bulletin editor noted that the scene was “not as common in the woods today as it was a few years ago,” adding that horses had replaced oxen in the industry only the decade before.

But the editor also noted that horses themselves, although very popular with area loggers, were already fast being replaced by tractors. In the post-war years, board camps were still in existence in Minnesota and in the lake States. Trees were hand-felled, loaded drays were hauled to landings by horses or small tractors, and trucks were loaded by hand, by horse jammers, or construction cranes.  bulldozers began showing up more frequently in the woods.

 Production per man-day at the times was anywhere from one to two cords. But mechanization was about to come to Minnesota in a big way. Shortly after the war ended, Rosholt equipment began to advertise the Diston Chain Saw in the pages of The Bulletin. It was so bulky that it required two men to operate it, but the concept of a gasoline engine small enough to power a chain-driven saw was one of the many technological advances to come out of World War II. Through all of this, logging was a dangerous profession, with accidents a way of life for the men and women who worked in the woods. To that end, TPA has always strongly promoted safety programs while also lobbying state and federal government, educating lawmakers and agencies on the unique conditions logging companies deal with while on the job.

 One of the most important tasks was the development of equitable workers compensation laws, and TPA’s efforts to keep these laws reasonable for logging business owners while also protecting the health and well-being of our industry’s workers.

Toward that end, TPA’s 50th anniversary publication related a story about George Biondich, a former TPA president and longtime association board member, and his introduction to workers compensation laws and lobbying efforts at the state capital:  Biondich, the portly contract logger from Koochiching County, whose stories are legend around the organization, attended a legislative hearing in St. Paul. The learned lawyers and legislators had spent hours debating how much a worker should be compensated for the loss of an arm, a hand, or a leg.  

Biondich pondered the legality of it all. “The next thing you know,” Biondich said, holding up a beefy hand with only four digits, “they’ll want to put a value on everything.  Hell, da woods will be full of tumbs.”

 As early as 1939, TPA lobbying efforts had helped reduce the rate for compensations to close to half of the previous rate. In 1956, the association reported that accidents involving axes comprised 20 percent of the total accidents in the Minnesota woods, while less than two percent of the injuries were attributed to falling limbs. Twenty- five years later, thanks in part to mechanization, limbs and trees falling on loggers accounted for 45 percent of the injury costs in the industry.

It wasn’t until the mid-1960s, however, that the pace of mechanization really quickened in Minnesota’s timber industry. The north woods saw a shortage of labor, thanks to both the military draft for the Vietnam war, and also because Iron Range taconite mines were booming and gobbling up much of the available manpower.  As a result, logging companies   were forced to either reduce production and fall short of filling their contracts, or turn to mechanization to overcome the labor shortage.

 But this mechanization came with costs.  For one thing, equipment operators needed to be trained. Plus, the financial commitment to purchase such equipment rose exponentially.  

 Also rising were the costs associated with protecting workers.  through the decade of the 1970s, actual total wages for logging employees went down, while workers’ compensation as a percentage of a company’s total expense doubled during this period. By 1980, Minnesota loggers were paying the fourth highest workers’ comp rates in the country, with only Michigan, Alaska, and Kentucky logging companies paying higher rates.

 That’s when TPA’s insurance committee took action, first studying the issue and then establishing the organization’s workers compensation insurance program with Lumbermen’s Underwriting Alliance (LUA). This has allowed TPA member companies to reduce expenses related to workers comp insurance over more than three decades.  The program continues today with northern Capital Insurance Group marketing the program and servicing the accounts.