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Show 55 Additional Workers Laid Off At Escalante Sawmills ESCALANTE Close to 55 people workers were laid off Tuesday Tues-day at Escalante Sawmills, Inc., joining others who left earlier. Only about 30 employees remain re-main at the mill, with most of those staying until mid-December when some 20 more will be released re-leased according to the mill's Sheldon Shel-don Steed. Steed said some of those who had left earlier have found employment as far away as Phoenix, Ariz. "It was the last day for the skid crew on Monday," Steed said. "Everything has been cut and is drying. dry-ing. We'll have two million board feet of rough lumber to run through the planer, and then that will be the end of it," he said. He said the company will keep a skeleton crew of seven after Dec. 3 1 to watch over the mill and handle paperwork. Steed said about 10 percent of his employees, anticipating the layoff had left early to take other employment elsewhere. Another 70 percent are now looking for employment, em-ployment, with approximately 20 percent trying to make it through the winter on unemployment, hoping hop-ing for an early spring re-opening of the mill. "People are having a tough time recovering from five months of layoffs last year," Steed said. "We were closed for two months for retooling, re-tooling, and then for another three months when we ran out of logs waiting for the higher elevation timber to open up." "Most of our workers are planning plan-ning to return in March, weather permitting," Steed said. "He said the company is "pursuing every possibility, still doing in depth planning for re-opening and is still relatively optimistic about its future. fu-ture. He said they are exploring some international funding possibilities possi-bilities through the company corporate corpo-rate offices. He said sawmill manager man-ager Stephen Steed met with Governor Gov-ernor Norman Bangerter last week about the mill's problems. |
