SUNDAY, AUGUST 2 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE G5
catering business remained
amid the pandemic she saw van-
ish with the mill closing. “There
are smaller graduation parties,
not holding 50th-anniversary
parties, retirement parties that
will not take place,” she said.
She and her husband now
work every shift at their restau-
rant. She can afford to schedule
her wait staff shifts on only one or
two days a month. The kitchen
staff has had furloughs.
“Am I in danger of losing my
business? Absolutely,” she said.
She worries also about the
deeper psychological toll the clos-
ing will have on the town.
“It shakes the core of our com-
munity,” she said. “And you see a
negative attitude — ‘The town is
dying; there is nothing there any-
more’ — when that is not true.”
$18 billion industry
The Wisconsin paper industry
is a complex economic ecosystem
that sprawls along the state’s riv-
ers and reaches deep into its
forests. It is populated by multi-
national corporations on one end,
and on the other by independent
operators who spend their days in
the woods and answer to no one.
Paper was an $18.16 billion
Wisconsin industry employing
30,262 workers at 34 mills, plus
another 204 facilities that con-
vert that paper into other prod-
ucts, according to a 2019 state
study. Factoring in other parts of
the supply chain, including log-
gers and truckers, it grows to
$28.88 billion and 95,853 work-
ers.
Those in that supply chain are
now feeling the pain of the mill
closure.
Logging company operator
Laura Delaney was in the middle
of a cut when she got word Verso
was shutting down. Everything
stopped.
“That wood is now just sitting
there,” she said. “I can’t sell it.”
Her parents started their log-
ging company in 1972, before she
was born. Each winter, when her
father would have no work pour-
ing concrete, her parents headed
into the woods, Delaney’s mother
measuring the logs and her father
cutting them with a chain saw.
Eventually, he stopped work-
ing construction and turned to
logging full-time. Delaney, 41,
now runs the business, and her
parents are semiretired.
With Verso closed, she has
scrambled to find other buyers
but had to shut down her compa-
ny for a week and a half in both
June and July, idling her 10 work-
ers. Shutdowns take a heavy toll
on her and others in her business,
which typically requires signifi-
cant debt for heavy equipment.
“It’s not like going to the store
PAPER MILL FROM G4
and buying a lawn mower,” Dela-
ney said. “We went to the store
and bought a machine that can
cut this wood to length that is
$750,000. A forwarder [to move
logs to piles] costs $500,000. An
outfitted truck costs $150,000.
“The bank doesn’t say ‘Skip the
payment on that thing’ when it is
just sitting there,” she said.
She is on the board of the
timber association backing the
proposal to turn the plant over to
a cooperative that would include
loggers. She believes the work
done by the industry in Wiscon-
sin is essential but overlooked.
“Whether you talk about it or
not, we are in your life,” she said.
“You know that Amazon carton? I
made that cardboard. Have you
eaten a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
this week? Well, sure enough, I
made the paper that made those
wrappers.”Cooperative proposal
The plant closing has infused
all aspects of local life — includ-
ing politics, as the presidential
election approaches.
“Everyone in Wisconsin Rap-
ids is either going to be related to
someone who got laid off or will
have some kind of close connec-
tion to someone who got laid off,”
said John Blakeman, a professor
of political science at the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin at Stevens Point.
“At a personal level, voters will
feel the impact directly or indi-rectly. That will probably mobi-
lize voters, and it will probably
come down to whether they hear
the economic message that is
meaningful to them and less on
identity-based politics.”
From May to June, statewide
voter approval for President
Trump’s handling of the economyfell 4 percentage points to 50 per-
cent, as voters’ view of the direc-
tion of the economy turned down
sharply, a Marquette Law School
poll found.
The poll also found that a
majority of Wisconsin voters dis-
approved of Trump’s handling of
the coronavirus pandemic andthe George Floyd protests. Over-
all, the June poll found 49 percent
of voters said they would vote for
former vice president Joe Biden
compared with 41 percent who
supported Trump, Biden’s largest
margin in Marquette’s polling
this year.
Blakeman noted that in theApril primary, Wood County had
relatively high turnout and that
nearly half, or 49 percent, of
voters cast a ballot for a Demo-
cratic candidate.
“There is something in the
district that has energized Demo-
cratic voters, at least in the prima-
ry,” Blakeman said. “That is why I
am thinking Trump will still carry
the county, but his margin will be
narrower.”
A task force convened by local
elected officials is looking at op-
tions to revive the plant once it is
mothballed by the company, in-
cluding finding an outside buyer
and converting it to make other
kinds of paper.
The state development corpo-
ration is studying the viability of a
cooperative, which would put op-
erations into the hands of the
plant workers, the loggers and
the haulers.
“For me that is the most excit-
ing effort,” said the development
corporation’s Hughes. “It is an
effort to control their own destiny
and to have ownership interest
where they are ‘it,’ they are the
industry.”
That, Hughes said, would allow
a long-term, sustainable plan for
the plant, “so there is not some-
one just coming in and selling it
for parts or closing it.”
State Rep. Scott Krug (R), one
of the officials who launched the
task force, called the cooperative
proposal “the most intriguing
idea out there.”
Krug said state money would
be needed, but the work by the
forestry industry and others has
made him hopeful about the pro-
posal. “They are further along
than I thought they would be,”
Krug said.
Dennis Schoeneck, 60, is one of
those pushing for a cooperative
with the timber association. He
has worked his whole life in the
woods. “I bought my first chain
saw when I was 11,” he said.
Looking for a new outlet for his
wood after the Verso closing, he
was told at one mill that 90
loggers had been there before
him.
A passionate proponent of
managing forests and of paper as
a sustainable resource — “What
else should we use, plastic?” he
said — he believes the same sus-
tainable approach can save the
mill.
“We won’t have any of those big
dogs at the top making millions of
dollars and not putting it back
into the facility,” he said. “We
would put it back into the facili-
ty.”
In addition to looking for ways
to save the mill, the local task
force is also exploring how to
increase government and charita-
ble aid to the region if their efforts
fail.
[email protected]do laundry, read, watch endless
covid-19 news coverage, etc.
My original plan was to resign
in good standing and return to
the service industry for a bit, but
then the service industry
collapsed. With the high
unemployment rate and a
desperate need to keep my health
insurance, my revised goal is to
leave by the end of this year. But
I’m battling the urge to just run
out the door.
Karla: Keep battling that urge.
Even if this job is not your
preferred situation, it’s a better
option now than joblessness,
especially for workers in your age
bracket.
I get it: Cultivating patience
and gratitude is hard enough
when you’ve chosen to stay in a
job you don’t care for. When the
choice has been taken out of yourhands, it’s nearly impossible.
And yet, your letter has a whiff
of helpless inertia about it. You
stayed at the lackluster job
because your friends urged you
to. The pandemic slammed the
exit door in your face and nailed
shut the service-industry window
for good measure. You’re trapped;
you have no other options.
Except you do. Even if you’re
not the one calling the shots, you
may be able to suggest or quietly
implement some changes that
will make your workday a bit
more efficient and tolerable.
Maybe you could let reception
calls go to voice mail, where you
check and respond to them twice
a day, instead of spending the
entire day on alert in case a call
comes in. I can’t be the only one
who’s encountered “Due to covid-
19” voice mail greetings. As longas I get a response to my message
within 24 hours, I’m fine with it.
Assuming you’re not, like, a 911
dispatcher, I’m assuming most of
your clients would be, too.
More options: You have bonus
morning and evening time when
your commute is no longer
sucking the life out of you. Your
unfilled work hours no longer
have to be spent performing
busyness in front of your office
mates; you can spend that time
doing things that actively benefit
you. In sweatpants, even. And to
buy yourself even more time, I
strongly suggest taking a break
from CovidWatch 2020.
How to spend that time? You
don’t mention what you’re doing
to prepare to leave by the end of
the year, but you’ll never have a
better opportunity than now to
squeeze in a little job research,buff up your résumé, or upgrade
your skills out of your employer’s
line of sight. If you’re lucky, “by
the end of this year” could come
sooner than you expect.
Of course, your inertia may be
caused by internal drag rather than
external forces. You certainly
wouldn’t be the only reader I’ve
heard from who suffers from
depression presenting as apathy, or
anxiety disguised as frustration.
You have options for dealing with
those, too. If none of the self-care
strategies discussed last week in
this column can help nudge you a
few steps forward, some online
sessions with a professional could
come in handy. Check out my
column at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
business/2020/07/23/coronavirus-
job-work-stress-cope/.
[email protected]Reader: Because
of the coronavirus
pandemic, I’m
stuck at an office
manager job I was
already planning
to quit. I had
forced myself to
stay a full year at
my friends’ urging,
only to have all
hell break loose in 2020.
Teleworking has been helpful
during this time, because the long
daily commute was killing me.
But working remotely has
exposed the things I dislike most
about my job: lack of leadership,
unclear lines of responsibility and
general disorganization and
dysfunction. Since we’ve been
teleworking, I’ve been the only
one answering our office’s main
phone line for four solid months,
because it has to be forwarded to
someone’s cellphone. I turn 50
soon; I don’t want to be head
receptionist anywhere. Also,
pandemic or not, this full-time job
has always had a part-time
workload, which was another
reason I wanted to leave. At least
now, instead of sitting around my
office doing nothing for large
portions of the day, I’m hanging
around my apartment where I canI wanted to quit boring job,
but covid-19 cut my options
Work
Advice
KARLA L.
MILLER
PHOTOS BY LAUREN JUSTICE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
TOP: Downtown Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. The Verso mill’s shutdown follows a coronavirus-
linked drop in paper demand, and its closure will be Wisconsin’s l argest permanent layoff since
the pandemic began. ABOVE: The mill has been on the Wisconsin River for more than a century.districts.
If Congress does not act now,
it is likely that there will be little
left of the child-care system
when the economic recovery is
fully underway — and the
consequences could set women
back a generation.
As economist Claudia Goldin
recently discussed, the current
generation of college-educated
women has come closer to
attaining a career and a family at
the same time than any other
generation before it. Yet the
pandemic has magnified gender
inequality at home and in the
workplace. Women are essential
workers in both places. But the
lack of options and availability of
child care during this pandemic
are forcing women, once again,
into situations where they can
choose only one or the other for
years to come.Alicia Sasser Modestino is an
associate professor in the School of
Public Policy and Urban Affairs at
Northeastern University, where she
studies issues related to gender and
the labor market.50 million workers, meaning any
economic recovery will rely on
their continued participation or
reentry into the labor force. The
child-care industry consists of a
network of nearly 675,000 small
businesses, employing 1.5 million
workers, that operate on razor
thin margins even in good times.
Yet, the $3.5 billion allotted to
the child-care industry in March
was a fraction of the emergency
aid offered to airlines under the
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and
Economic Security Act, or Cares
Act. While Senate Republicans’
Health, Economic Assistance,
Liability Protection and Schools
Act, or “Heals Act,” package
unveiled Monday included
$70 billion in aid for K-12
schools, two-thirds of the funds
are restricted to in-person
learning — a heavy-handed
approach to addressing the
nation’s child-care needs.
A far better solution would be
to provide additional funding for
day care, giving parents the
flexibility they desperately need
without dictating a one-size-fits-
all solution across schoolLow-income, less educated and
nonwhite households were also
less likely to have backup child
care.
The sheer magnitude of the
disruption to child care during
the pandemic will probably
affect women’s labor force
participation and earnings
trajectories for decades to come.
Research shows that women who
drop out of the workforce to take
care of children often have
trouble getting back in, and the
longer they stay out, the harder it
is to return. Wage losses are
much more severe and enduring
when they occur in recessions,
and workers who lose jobs now
are less likely to have secure
employment in the future. T hese
effects accumulate over time as
people who drop out of the labor
force miss out on pay increases
and promotions that come from
long-term relationships with an
employer.
This is not a small problem
that will be easily solved. Parents
with children under the age of 14
make up almost one-third of the
country’s workforce, or roughlybe women who bear the brunt of
the child-care crisis. Child-care
access is strongly associated with
maternal labor force
participation, and child-care
closures will probably lead to
more costly career sacrifices for
women. During the pandemic,
there have been numerous
stories about women quitting
their jobs because of a lack of
child care. One out of 4 women
who reported becoming
unemployed during the
pandemic said it was because of
a lack of child care — twice the
rate among men.
For low-income and single
moms, the pandemic has
exacerbated the hard choices
between spending a significant
portion of their income on child
care; finding a cheaper but
potentially lower-quality option;
or leaving the workforce to
become a full-time caregiver. Our
survey of working parents found
that the loss of hours because of
a lack of child care is greater for
women of color, women without
a college degree and women
living in low-income households.between Mother’s Day (May 10)
and Father’s Day (June 21) to find
out. We learned that 13.3 percent
of working parents had lost a job
or reduced their hours because of
a lack of child care. Working
parents lost eight hours per week
on average, or one full working
day, to care for their children. In
households with two working
adults, we found an even greater
loss of 14.6 hours per week,
potentially representing a
significant hit to total family
income.
Some families found short-
term child-care solutions by
reducing hours, taking paid or
unpaid leave, or alternating
schedules with another adult in
their household. However, these
stopgap measures were based on
the assumption that the fall
would bring a return to school
and organized child care and are
simply unsustainable for the
long term. In a recent survey, half
of parents of young children in
Massachusetts said they “will not
be able to return to work without
a consistent child-care solution.”
If history is any guide, it willstaff ratios and staffing
requirements. Given that day
cares historically operate on slim
profit margins, these initial
restrictions — coupled with the
expense of purchasing personal
protective equipment, or PPE,
for staff and additional cleaning
materials — could mean steep
increases in tuition or going out
of business. Some advocates
anticipate a wave of permanent
closures, leading to the loss of as
many as 450,000 child-care slots
— reducing the supply exactly
when demand will spike because
of widespread remote learning.
Among working parents who
reported needing care, nearly
two-thirds (63 percent) had
difficulty finding child care in
the first months of the pandemic.
Even relying on grandparents
can be uncertain — particularly
in states with high and/or
resurging coronavirus caseloads.
Where does that leave working
parents? With two colleagues, I
conducted a national panel
survey of 2,557 working parents
CHILD CARE FROM G1
ALICIA SASSER MODESTINO
A quarter of women who left jobs during the pandemic blamed lack of child care