Anyone walking down the street in Western Montana yesterday got to see Plum Creek Timber Co. talking out two sides of their mouth underneath a Missoulian headline waxing humble about massive layoffs and proud about shining first quarter profit margins.
Close to 300 employees of Plum Creek’s regional timber operations in Pablo, Evergreen, and Columbia Falls received notice that they’d be let-go in roughly 60 days, according to the front page story in this western Montana daily, linked here.
Plum Creek's Evergreen operation: one of three western Montana operations slated for a total of nearly 300 layoffs in coming weeks. (Photo courtesy: FlatheadBeacon)
“It really is getting rougher and rougher,” Kathy Budinick, the company’s PR rep told the Missoulian, “We’re working hard to manage the situation, but there’s not much good news.” Her lamenting goes on to cite statistics from the national construction market, down 70 percent since 2005. She said it, there’s not really much good news…
Oh really?
No good news at all huh?
Well, the front page story that ran right next to that one glowed about the company’s $157 million in earnings and $470 million in revenue from their first quarter reports–a quadrupling of earnings. See the linked story here.
Budinick wasn’t quoted in that story.
The stinger for us is the mickey-mouse approach to PR that Plum Creek can take as they become a real estate giant using formerly public lands. They’ll use statistics from the national construction market’s collapse to justify major layoffs, but then let slip the reality of the booming real estate market which has created the lion’s share of their growth this last year. They pretend they’re still a timber company when it’s to their benefit or sympathy, but a fiscally muscular real estate trust when it’s time to court investors in their quarterly earnings report.
Plum Creek is acting a little like this woman, with two speaking faces representing the same head... No that's not actually Kathy Budinick. (Image Courtesy: jilstanek.com)
The truth is, the regional timber market–both on the supply and demand side–has come tumbling down in the past two years. We’ve posted on this topic here, and here. PC knows they can get sympathy by pretending to be a part of this slide, even though they hedged their bets years ago by consolidating their assets, trimming production, and expanding their ability to develop vast former-timberlands that they’ll now use to sell and develop as real estate. Getting federal and state officials to help them adjust some road-easement regulations was the first major step–allowing them to develop these lands without the previous restrictions.
This easements thing is a huge issue folks should read about if not already in the know. Newwest, a rocky mountain web-news portal, has a piece on it here. A columnist for Missoula’s alternative weekly newspaper, the Independent, George Ochenski wrote a well-developed piece on it here. Wildlands CPR, a restoration and anti-ORV group has some really good background on it as well, here.
Anyhoo, Plum Creek has been in the habit of playing backroom politics to advance its bottom line while crying “poor us” when its time to layoff scores of employees.
Fortunately, many of the laid-off employees will qualify for federal re-training funds, allowing them to attend professional course and college programs with generous subsidy.
Otherwise, they’d have no other options.
Tags: George Ochenski, Kathy Budinick, Missoula Independent, Missoulian, Newwest, Plum Creek Timber, Wildlands CPR
June 21, 2009 at 4:05 pm
This was typical Plum Creek two-speak.
I’m glad the Missoulian actually ran both stories. Alot of times the news will just ignore this stuff and not let the public digest the appalling contradiction.
They’re laying off so many people! Should we know about it?