—

1 em ma hii a hh

look

A. view of the sprawling Powell River plant.

_ By H. W.

WN
| CHE armed services, it ‘be-

Me a matter of statistical
fern j

n the last big war,

©w many men were re-
Sd to keep the man who

© gun, up front firing
~ Was noted that for every
€ who was sitting in a
e : there were seven men
mM arms red
—f€s and officers’ can-
M London, Cairo, and

e - No one ever ven-
teg he opinion that these
tis ®chelon jobs could be
“too ae With, although the
°88er occasionally won-
8S to whether or not
be viehe and theirs could not
ed on a rotative basis.

depots,

F things?’ Machinery and ma-
1 “Om, ‘Ons of war became more
*, the number of men
é. to build, supply and
the tr the equipment for

_ At line soldier increas-

js

this respect, a large man-
Mg plant is in parallel
Military organization.
River, the account-
the millwrights, the
“fs and cooks, the
"Rers, kamyr men and

the mill messengers are the
men behind the man in the
off-white union suit, the paper
maker.

Paper making is an art ev-
olved by a crazy bee with a
built-in digester who mixed
up his flowers and his trees
end ended up with a bellyful
of wood pulp. Not a wasteful
insect, the bee built his home
from this original do-it-your-
self project.

Years later, the Chinese
were making paper, and the
Japanese were building their

homes of it. Still later, the
Western world perfected the
printing press and the de-

mand for a large supply of
paper was created. _

In answer to this crying
need, the Brooks-Scanlon in-
terests decided to build a pa-
permaking plant of the news-
print variety in Powell River.
To run their. machines they
imported a group of bashful,
barefoot .boys, Powell Rivers
first bona-fide papermakers.

Bearing but slight resembl-
ance to their barefooted pre-

decessors, today’s well-shod

SULLIVAN

A papermaker
at his job

paper makers may be glimps-
ed in serious conclave by the
first spittoon at the corner of
office, where they
gather to swap the latest ru-
mors prior to taking over their
duties on the eight paper ma-
chines housed in the mill.

the time

The paper makers are Pow-
ell Rivers’ workmen.
They have a union of their own
Local 142, which Local 76 of
the International Brotherhood
of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper
Mill Workers takes the oppor-
tunity to salute. They have
the biggest cars and the nicest
homes. and the best clothes of
anyone working for the Pow-
ell River Company, and we
are generally proud of them,
in the manner that Texans
are proud of their millionaires
and the English revere their
squire.

elite

A paper maker does not be-
come a paper maker without
first coming through the var-
ious phases of his craft.

He becomes at a_ tender
“broke hustler.” A
hustler” gathers the
ends of paper kicking
and dispatches them to

age, a
“broke
loose
about

the regions below containing
the beaters. He shoves the fin-
ished roll of, paper into the
care of the cappers, who ten-
derly wrap. and label the rolls
thusly received. He next pro-
gresses through the positions
of fourth and fifth .hands.

If the machine crews were
given military designations
the broke hustler would be a
private, and the fourth and
fifth hands would be lance
corporal and corporal, spend-
ing a larger period of their
working hours in giving or-
ders to the broke hustler.

They also assist in splicing
breaks, threading the sheet
through the winder and blow-
ing the floor clean with the
air hose. The broke hustler
uses the broom.

The sergeant of the machine
crew is the winderman, whose
duty obviously is the opera-
tion of the winder.

A machine has apparently
never been built capable of
extruding a roll of paper of
the correct dimensions. As a
correction to this error, a
“winder” is an integral part

NOVEMBER 2, 1956 —

machine where the
rolls are cut to the customers’
specifications.

of each

The back tender would be
the the

crew. From the point of view

termed captain of
of a casual observer, his prim-
ary tasks seems to be that of
rapid tattoo upon
as it builds up on

beating a

the paper

the reel, listening attentively
to the type of “thunk” he pro-

duces.

Although the point of this
pounding escapes me, I would
venture to say that it is like
a housewife kneading

Italian

bread
or an walking n

grapes, it is a

necessary part
of the art of paper‘making.

The colonel of the machine

is undoubtedly the choleric
gentleman of early vintage

who is ensconced at the wet

end of the machine, the man

at the apex of his craft, the

machine tender.

The machine tender inevit-
ably wears a suit of heavy
long johns -which have been
handed down like the Queen’s
jewels from each back-tender
to his successor.

The machine-tender keeps
his crew on its toes by occas-
ionally blowing a whistle. As
soon as this whistle blows, the
sheet breaks and the boys race
to their respective battle posi-
tions about the machine in an
all-out ‘endeavor to get the
sheet across again in the short-
est possible time, as the ma-
chine is not making money
when it’s down.

There was a time in Powell
River when the machines were
so noisy a paper maker could
not hear himself think. In
those days this was not a great
loss, as the amount of thought
required was held to a mini-
mum.

The tendency of late has
been to equip the machingw
with a high calibre UBC grad-
uate type of personnel, and
of course not only do they
wish to hear themselves think,
they should like others to re-
ceive the benefit of their
mental calibrations.

The company has, there-
for embarked upon a_ noise
abatement program. The jun-
ior help are equipped with
ear plugs and the senior with
sound proofed booths. That
the method is essentially cor-
rect, is proved by the fact that
the paper makers keep break-
ing their own speed récords
in the production of paper.

This is a wonderful thing,
for once upon a time when
the papermakers broke a re-
cord, we all received over
and above our bi-weekly pit-
tance. and in addition to’ the
children’s allowance, the sum
of one ten dollar bill, and a
genuine silver dollar in com-
memorative gifts!

@ Reprinted from the Wes-
tern Pulp and Paper
Worker.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 11