Yesterday’s post when Fletcher Walker criticized Fruit Growers increasing logging camp board, here is another side of the story.

The cookhouse in logging camps operated at significant losses.In 1948, when logging camps of Fruit Growers Harvey line opened, raised the price of a meal to one dollar. Complaints were loud and long. But now, instead of losing thirty-six cents per meal, they only lost eight cents. That’s still substantial. At the end 1948 Fruit Growers’s losses for operating those cookouses was $63,500.

On May 2, 1949, Camps Harvey and Stanford opened for another season. In an effort to further reduce expenses, Fruit Growers leased the cookhouses and commisarries to the H.S. Anderson Company for one dollar. Fruit Growers thought perhaps an outside company could handle the meals more efficiently. They would never find the answer.

Just threes into the logging season all operations on the Harvey line  shut down. The cookhouse crews, represented by Local 768 of the Bartenders and Culinary Workers Union, walked off the job in a wage and hour dispute with H.S. Anderson Company. Logging came to a standstill. As the weeks passed with no end of the strike, Fruit Growers abandoned all logging operations on the Harvey line.

Support