Louisiana: The State We're In; 204; Industry/ Bogalusa

Production funding for this program was provided in part through contributions to Louisianians for Educational Television. The following program is a production of Louisiana Public Broadcasting. Good evening, I'm Beth George. Welcome to this edition of Louisiana: The State We're In. This week we assess the bright and dark sides of industry. We visit a one-industry town facing a large layoff, talk to the state's young deputy secretary of commerce and look at a blend of imagination and capitalism. Ever since the start of the Industrial Revolution, people have looked at the city smokestacks, the jutting roofs of plants and factories and wondered if a rural society wasn't the best idea after all. No second thoughts, however, have managed to halt or slow the progress. Many now depend on

industry for their livelihood. And we all depend on it for our lifestyles. Few could really return to the primitive past they often spout their longings for. Still if man can't do without industry, some industries can do more and more without man. To modernize is nearly always to automate. Every area of the country has, at one time or another, felt the trauma of a layoff. It's usually just a matter of time before workers find jobs in the area's other industries. But what happens when there is only one industry? The people of Bogalusa are finding out. Crown Zellerbach acquired the Bogalusa pulp and paper mill and its four associated plants in 1955. The mill employs over 2,000 workers in the town of 18,000. In August, the plant announced they were cutting out some 1,000 jobs. Crown Zellerbach said rising costs, old equipment and new environmental standards forced the company to make the changes. Delos Knight, a spokesman for Crown, explained. Originally built in 1918 and over the years it's had some modernization, but recently new mills all over the

South are much bigger, faster, more efficient. We've planned $120 million construction program here to modernize the pulp mill. The fuel system will be burning waste wood instead of higher cost oil and gas, and we'll convert the mill to producing nothing but container board for the manufacture of boxes. Part of the problem for some of the people in the town of Bogalusa is this modernisation necessitates eliminating some of the jobs. Have there been problems with this? Do the people understand what's going on? I believe that people do understand what's going on, Beth, because they recognise that the other alternative is to lose all of the jobs. And a mill has to remain competitive with the marketplace or it can't continue to operate. How long has this been in the planning stages? We're talking really since about the '60s. Is that right? Well, studies have been going on for a long time. We really began to focus on what had to be done about two years ago. We began having meetings with our

employees then to explain to them the problems, and they've been understanding of the need to modernize. Although it's a business necessity to make money and to make something function and operate. the town of Bogalusa really relies heavily on the mill. Tell me something about the background of how this was really a mill town. First, Bogalusa was a mill town. It was built as a sawmill town in 1906. Unlike most sawmill towns though, this one continued because of advanced far-sighted planning. Reforestation was started in Bogalusa in 1920 and its on these forests that the forest industry continues to operate today. That's why we're able to modernize and keep this mill running now. You're from Bogalusa. Let me ask you just a little personal question. Are you in a difficult position now because you're from this town and really people are losing their jobs. Do they take it out on you in any way as a symbol of the company? Of course not. Bogalusa people are all good people. Many of the managers in our company all over Crown Zellerbach trained at Bogalusa or worked at Bogalusa.

So this wasn't an easy decision for anyone in Crown because ours is a company of mills in small towns. Paper mills are generally in small towns. So we know full well the impact of a decision like this has, but we also know that sometimes you have to make a hard business decision to keep something operable. And that's what it came down to here. And are you providing some sort of counseling or future placement opportunities for the employees? Well we're doing everything we can. Of course everyone has to make their own decision about where they want to go, what they want to do. We have brought in job counselors to work with the people in the two bag plants who will be leaving on the 1st of November. Just yesterday the closure agreement was signed with the union for those two plants which provides for extended severance pay over a period of weeks, depending on years of service. After the plant closes down, insurance coverage will continue during that period to help these people bridge the gap. The state Office of

Employment Security is in working with them. All sorts of other public agencies are in to try to do what they can to help. But it's it's not easy to find a job, and we know it. We're trying to help every way we can. But doing everything they can won't be enough for many of the 1,000 workers who will eventually lose their jobs. Many of the employees are middle aged. The skills they used at the mill are not easily transferred to other jobs. Mr. Stogner, how long have you worked at the plant? It'll soon be 27 years. And what sort of job do you have out there? I'm a bag adjuster, a machine adjuster. I tear a line machine as an adjuster. I'm responsible for their production and keeping them up. And you're going to be laid off when? They say by November the 1st. How many people are in the same boat? About 450, I think. Were you surprised and how did you find out about the layoff?

Well, I didn't know it, until I read it in the paper and naturally you were shocked when you work for a company that long and you don't know it. Naturally you are shocked to find out you are going to lose your job, that you're almost retirement age, too, you know, and so I was really shocked that I was out of a job. Are you going to have any sort of retirement from the company? We have one but, you see, I'm not quite old enough. When we vested, I'll lose about 28 percent of it. What are you going to do? That's the $64 question right now. But other companies are interested and I'm trying to find something around Bogalusa in case. I hope I don't have to move. Do you think you might have to move away from town? I might. If the company's that interested and paying up money, I'll leave. Mr. Stogner's problems are shared by many of the workers. Bogalusa is basically a one- industry town and other jobs are hard to come by. Mayor Louis Rawls says he's been

concerned about the problem, even before the plant cutbacks, and he's looking for solutions. After November 1st, when say, at that point 450 people won't be working. Isn't there a tremendous, tremendous ripple effect? Doesn't the town just rely heavily on the plant? They rely not just heavily, but altogether on the Crown and the bag plants and the mill. Now it will have a great effect on it financially because the 450 jobs to about 600 because some plants depend on Crown and naturally if they close those plants down well then they won't need as many employees. Have you been having a lot of people coming to you because you're the mayor of the town saying what can I do what, what am I gonna do after I don't have a job? Not as of now. Most of the people that we've been working with are local

citizens which are interested in the future of Bogalusa and we should have been working years ago, which I have been. In a handful of citizens and I've been made fun of. I've been ridiculed, not only by some of the public, but by even Council members about getting industry into Bogalusa. When I first ran, my one main project was to get industry to Bogalusa because I'm tired of our children leaving and going elsewhere to seek employment. I have three children. Two have finished college and gone and the other one is a junior in LSU. When she finishes, she'll be gone because there's nothing for them to do around here. Do you think it's wrong or bad for the future of a town to rely too heavily on one industry?

Do you think that's so? Very much. I think that's really so. If possible, you should fix it to where you don't ever relay on just one industry. What are the some of the things that you can do to bring in new industry and what are you looking at? What are the plans for the future of the town? We've been, we've heard talk about a prison being in this area. Well, there's been talk of a prison. There's been considerable discussion on a prison. The only thing I would have hoped was for it to be offered to Bogalusa before this came. That way our citizens wouldn't feel that they were forced to take a prison or anything else. We had the people to put to work here before Crown closed their two bag plants down. Is this area highly, a highly unionized area? People are used to getting pretty good wages and do you think that they wouldn't want just say any job, but they're looking at jobs that pay well. Yes, it's highly unionized, but when you

get hungry, you can't be choosy. I believe in organized labor and I was at one time president of a Union. And also I was taught that a good union man looks out for the employer as well as the employee. Because if there is no employer, then there won't be an employee. Over the years, the Bogalusa paper mill has been more than an employer. Bogalusa was founded as a sawmill town and the company has remained a benevolent patriarch, building a hospital, school and houses, paying property taxes, backing bond issues and, until the '40s, providing the town's mayor. But over the last few years that all has changed. And with the cutbacks at the plant, an entire way of life for the town of Bogalusa may change. Keeping track of the state's businesses and attracting fresh industry are two of the many jobs of the Department of Commerce. Though many who work for the department are old hands at industry inducement, the deputy secretary is old in neither years nor politics.

The decor of Gary Weill's office might be called early '60s liberal with more than a dash of Kennedy idealism. Yet for all the idealism Weill is not naive about the challenges of his job. I think the major thing that I'll be working on in the Department of Commerce will be the reorganization of the department. I worked with Judge Reggie's committee, the Joint Legislative Committee, on reorganization and I feel like that reorganizing this department is my major challenge here. Do you think it needs a lot of reorganizing? Did you? How does it compare with other states' set ups? Well one of the first things I did when I came over here was to write the other 49 states and I'm getting back information on how their departments of commerce are structured and there are some likenesses. There are some states like

Louisiana and there are some states that are structured differently from Louisiana. One of the interesting things about our Department of Commerce is that it does include besides the economic development functions, some regulatory agencies like the Insurance Rating Commission, the state banking department. But I don't think that's necessarily bad. I think that there's a tremendous challenge here to to develop more of a developmental emphasis and thrust throughout the entire Department of Commerce. And I think that's one of our major goals. Commerce and industry is the most visible section. Now what that is the economic development arm? Right, right. What does it do? Well, their main thrust is to try to market or sell Louisiana to businesses throughout the country and to attract industry to come to Louisiana, like you noticed where General Motors is coming to Shreveport. And things like that are great for the economy of the state. And it's one of the

major challenges of this department is to attract more industry into the state. You're a fairly young man to have a heady position. Are you impressed with the position you have now? To be honest, I had some reservations about leaving the legislative council. I really enjoyed working for the legislative branch here in Louisiana, but I am proud of the opportunity to, to work here in the Department of Commerce and in the executive branch. But it hadn't gone to my head no, not at all. What's your background? I think it's not the normal one perhaps for someone in this department. Well, when I was in my educational background is, I majored in political science and creative writing, but it was in the College of Business Administration. It was a intercollegiate kind of program. I've done graduate work in political science. I've completed 21 hours of a 30-hour program. And I hope to complete my master's at some point in the future.

And I've worked four years with the legislative council where I've worked with the Legislature and with the executive branch reorganization and with different legislative topics. Did you find any resistance when you came into this department? You are new. Was there a hesitancy of other people about other people in your relationship? Your being so young and coming into the department. Not really. Everybody here has been very polite, very nice, and I haven't had any problems with the people at all. I think that there's some differences of opinion within our department with respect to how we should reorganize the department. But I think that's good and that's positive. The assistant secretaries of the department and the under secretary and Secretary Legas [?] and I along with the lieutenant governor will make decisions with respect to how we feel the department should be reorganized. I don't have all the answers. Mr. Legas [?] doesn't feel like he has all the answers and together we'll try to put together a composite

program on how we can best build this department into something meaningful for the state. A lot of the problems in developing commerce and industry in the state has been sort of a stalemate between big business and big labor. You acted as a counsel to the reorganization committee on which Mr. Steimel and Mr. Bussie also sat. Do you see this as a continuing confrontation down the road? I think Mr. Steimel and Mr. Bussie are two of the most brilliant men in the state. I think that they both, in their own way, have done a great deal for the state of Louisiana, but they kind of remind me of...I don't know if you ever saw The Big Country, a movie with Charles Bickford and Burl Ives, but two brilliant men. But they really were always at each other's throats and finally they let them go out and shoot it out and they shot each other. But really I'm not serious about that. I think that both men do a lot for the state, but there are some areas where they could come together and compromise.

Telling the story, you're pretty good. I understand you're also a novelist. Tell us about that. Well, I began doing some creative writing when I was in college. I think I got the urge to write because of different feelings that I was coming in contact with in terms of growing up and what I wanted out of my life and my existence, and I found that writing is a therapeutic thing for me in terms of communicating feelings that I have inside. Getting them down on paper helps me. The primary way I write is through poetry, but I've been working on a kind of a therapeutic autobiography which took me four years to write the last chapter because I wanted the last chapter to be where I finally grew up. But I think I've finally completed my first little novel. Do you see yourself somewhere down the line staying here being a novelist? What do you see in the future, say 15 years from now?

15 years from now, I'm really not sure. I think that it's very possible that I would go back to the legislative branch and work with the legislative council. It's possible that at some point I would want to run for the Legislature myself, but I'm not sure about that. I know I'll continue to do a lot of writing, but one thing that that's important to me in that I've made clear my own mind is that the most important things to me are my family, my wife, you know, and my little boy. If I can just maintain those relationships in good shape, I feel like the job part of it'll take care of itself and that will just be a secondary thing that will be a lot of fun. Automation and state involvement are only two attempts at helping industry face the future. Equally essential is research. In Louisiana, this usually means petroleum research of the sort carried out by Exxon in Baton Rouge. The research laboratories celebrated their 50th anniversary this week, spending at least as

much time gazing into the future as into the past. The laboratory is an unusual place, a blend of dreams and capitalism. Imaginative people abound, each rummaging a mental crystal ball for what the future will bring. Let all know, too, that the future is their livelihood. That beating the competition to the best most cheaply is the key to their survival. In the past, the labs have helped Exxon more than survive and made some valuable contributions to the nation in the process. Synthetic rubber and improved refining procedure involving this strange fluid solid have been developed in Baton Rouge in earlier years. When air is pumped into the substance, it looks and feels like a liquid. Yet when it's at rest, it's a solid resembling talcum powder. A lab of course can't rest on its laurels. The nation faces no shortage of energy problems and even electron microscopes are being used to study them.

Study exploratory catalysts that are being developed in our laboratories here and we also examine commercial catalysts which are already on the market and in use. And we determine the structure of these materials which helps us understand what makes a good catalyst good and what makes a poor catalyst poor. In other words we're trying to find what features there are in a catalyst that that really make for good catalytic activity, good catalyst performance and good catalyst life. For a look at the future of petroleum research and the lab's role in it, Bob Waghorn is the man to talk to. I understand that you are somewhat of a crystal ball gazer. In the research arm of Exxon, do you have to look how many years in the future? Well for, to have an effective research program, you really have to look from 10 to 25 years ahead of time.

And when you gaze into your crystal ball, what do you see? I see a confusing situation. You never know what's going to happen, because there are many alternate scenarios that can, that can arise, depending on how Congress reacts, how the people react to a problem, and whether we in fact will find, for example, oil off the East Coast. Alright, if we do say that there are limited supplies of oil and gas, as everyone seems to concede although they may differ on how much, are you trying to find here in Exxon research laboratories how to utilize say the dregs at the bottom of the barrel? Well we're trying to. Yes. We're trying to find out how to use, utilize the the worst materials because there are a lot of very heavy crude oils that have not been produced up till now because we can, we have plenty of the light stuff. Now what we're going to have to go back and run some of that heavy stuff. But in addition we're trying to do research that will help us use what we have better.

One of the things we've seen the advent of in recent years is stronger environmental safeguards. The EPA comes out with numerous regulations. Are you constantly on your toes trying to keep up with the EPA or at least ahead of them? Yes, we're trying to stay ahead of them if we can, because nobody wants to be in a bind and have to do something unoptimum. The EPA's push for the removal of sulfur and carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons from the atmosphere has been a trigger for a lot of the research we've done in the last six or eight years. There, a lot of profits are made by oil companies. We see that written up in the paper a lot, but we also see that it costs a lot of money to explore and to do research. How much money does Exxon spend in the research area, say, every year? I don't have the...I don't really have the total number. We spend up between 10 and 15 million a year here. So you do have, you can make expensive mistakes? Oh, very much so. The hydro plant I showed you back there was an expensive mistake.

If the mistake, if you call a mistake the fact that you planned for an eventuality that didn't occur. Are you a scientist, when you're a scientist, are you one in the theoretical sense or do are the scientists here looking for practical research. Or is it more theoretical? We try to use theory to solve practical problems. We, by definition, being a development lab are aware of the practical science hat. But we try to use pure and theoretical science as much as we can because theoretical science gives you a background, a solid background, that makes it extrapolations from the database that you're currently have a lot more valid. So we try to get as fun, as fundamental as we can. One last thing as you're gazing into your crystal ball. We've seen a lot of advances in modern technology in the last 50 years. We've certainly seen it in the aerospace industry and you've seen it in your area also. Do you see that just rapid development over the next 50

years or is there going to be even a greater explosion, maybe new fuels we don't know anything about? Well I sometimes feel that gee, we must have found it all. And yet every day something new comes up. I think it's going to be a very fascinating and very challenging next 50 years. I think that if I were to come back 50 years from now, I would say, "I wouldn't have believed it." Louisiana's industrial revolution and certainly Baton Rouge's can be traced to the location of the Standard Oil refinery here in 1909. At its height just after World War II, the refinery employed 9,000 workers. Even today, when the payroll is down to 4,700, petroleum plant is most diversified in the world and it still employs nearly 10 percent of the Baton Rouge labor force. The research laboratories weren't established until 1927 and employ just a handful by comparison. But the work they do may someday prove essential to us all. In the past as Waghorn said, oil refineries around the world have

taken the easy way out, using the crude oils that requires the least work to become usable fuels. Now that our supply of the light crude is diminishing, research must find ways to get fuel from heavier stocks, a step ahead of the competition and at a price American consumers can afford. So the dreaming goes on in this bastion of industrial pragmatism. Louisiana has tied its economic health over the years to oil and gas revenues, both the production of energy and the industrial enticement of cheap natural gas. But there have been indications in recent years that such dependency may be dangerous. State officials are hoping a combination of research and new industry will steer the state clear of any fate similar to that of Bogalusa. I'm Beth George. Good evening. The proceeding was an LPB production.

Production funding for this program was provided in part through contributions to Louisianians for Educational Television.