LP mill workers prepare for life after closing

By WALT WILLIAMS, Chronicle Staff Writer

BELGRADE - Richard Bopp, 52, of Manhattan had worked at the Louisiana Pacific lumber mill here for 12 years when he learned one day in May that he'd soon be out of a job.

There had been temporary work stoppages at the plant before, and everyone knew the timber market was in bad shape.

Still, when the announcement came, "I was shocked," Bopp said.

"We knew it was going to happen some day, but I figured a couple more years," he said. "And after that I thought somebody would buy the plant and I wouldn't have to worry about it."

Now Bopp and the nearly 140 other employees at the plant find themselves looking for work. The mill is scheduled to shut down July 20.

Some employees will retire. All will get severance packages.

Several employees are waiting to learn what, if any, help they can expect from the federal government for job retraining. The government will pay their schooling if it determines their jobs were lost due to foreign competition.

But retraining isn't an option for Bopp, who resaws timber at the mill. He said he doesn't see himself moving from his home, and "there are not a whole lot of schools around here" to retrain workers.

"I can't really see getting retrained unless it's something I'm really interested in," he said. "So far I haven't found anything yet that really appeals to me."

Carol Cutting, 51, of Belgrade would've marked her 11th year at the plant in August had it stayed open.

An office administrator at the plant, she grew up in Livingston, and has lived in the area nearly all her life.

She's divorced with adult children. Her job pays well, especially compared to other work of the same skill level throughout the Gallatin Valley.

But it's getting more expensive to live here with the rising property values, and the job market isn't great for people like her.

"I've looked in the paper and in other magazines in the valley" for jobs, Cutting said. "It's not great for a single person, or a single woman anyway."

The Louisiana Pacific mill is the largest private employer in Belgrade, although its employees live throughout the region.

Salaries at the mill range from $12 to $21 an hour, plus benefits.

The impact of its closing on this community won't be immediate. The plant doesn't pay city property taxes because it's located on county land, so city officials must wait until after the plant closes and see which of the 67 employees that live in town have moved away before they know the blow to the tax base.

Manufacturing has become the economic backbone of Gallatin County, having surpassed Montana State University as the largest industry in the area during 2002, according to a report by the University of Montana.

But many manufacturing jobs are in the high-tech arena, which requires a higher skill level than needed to work at the LP mill.

The mill applied for trade adjustment assistance, or TAA, from the U.S. Department of Commerce not long after announcing the closing, plant manager Bill Fleming said. But it jumped the gun. The government requires that a manufacturer first shut down operations before applying, so the plant will send another application.

If the mill gets the assistance, then the federal government will pay for 104 weeks of job retraining for any employees interested in the offer, said Gary Wright, TAA program manager for the Montana Department of Labor and Industry.

The government will pay 90 percent of "allowable" relocation expenses for employees who need to move to find work. Those same workers also are eligible for a $1,250 stipend.

However, the government won't provide any assistance unless it determines that foreign competition led to the plant's closing, Wright said. LP officials claim a flood of softwood lumber from Canada has ruined the U.S. timber market and is responsible for the closing.

The Department of Commerce must make a decision within 45 days of receiving the application.

The government has come through before for a local business. Dana Design, a backpack manufacturer in Bozeman, closed its doors in the mid-1990s so the business could relocate its plant to another country.

Its laid-off employees received retraining assistance.

Glenn McGovern, 35, of Belgrade has spent 13 years at the LP mill and said he's looking forward to a change. He plans to stay in the area with his wife and two children and seek job retraining, possibly to become a pharmacy technician.

He admits he is more optimistic about his prospects than some of his co-workers.

"It seems like a lot of them are wondering what they're going to do," he said. "Some of the older guys are going to find it tough in the workforce, where I'm still young enough where I think I have a pretty good chance of making it."

Jim Byler, 49, of Churchill has worked at the plant 20 years, most recently operating the Link-Belt crane.

"The pay is pretty decent, but I like running the equipment," he said. "I had the opportunity while I worked here to run all the stuff in the yards."

Byler worked in British Columbia before moving here. He has a wife who works and three grown children.

The closing was something that had been expected for a while, he said.

As for his future, "I'm just kind of floating."

"I don't think I'm going to get any retraining," he said. "I like running equipment, if I could get a job doing that, I would be as happy as doing anything else."

"I'm not sure what I would want to retrain to be anyway," he added. "I've been doing this a long time, about 20 years here and 10 in the woods. That's about what I know."

He put in some applications at local gravel pits and construction jobs. He even weighed the option of starting his own woodworking business, much to the dismay of the government worker assigned to assist him.

"I think he was discouraged when I told him I want to start my own business," Byler said. "I think he was thinking I wanted to get money from the government to do that, which I really don't."

With his wife holding her job, he doesn't worry about living expenses. But there are lean times ahead if he doesn't find work.

"My finances are pretty well set," he said. "I don't have to have a fantastic job to survive. I'd hate to go to minimum wage, but I could if I have too."

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