Strong Winds and Widow Makers

Often cast as villains in the Northwest's environmental battles, timber workers have a connection to the forest that goes far beyond jobs and economic issues, argues Steven C. Beda his new book Strong Winds and Widow Makers: Workers, Nature and Environmental Conflict in Pacific Northwest Timber Country. 
In a discussion with the Labor Radio Podcast Network this week, Beda talked about how life experiences like hunting, fishing, foraging, and hiking imbued timber country with meanings and values that nurtured a deep sense of place in workers, their families, and their communities. This sense of place in turn shaped ideas about protection that sometimes clashed with the views of environmentalists--or the desires of employers.

Music:
Strong Winds and Widow Makers - Buzz Martin
Bread and Roses – The R.J. Phillips Band (includes video commemorating the Bread and Roses Strike, which began on January 11, 1912)

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Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

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