“I know of no one who has gone to work or has a job lined up where they are going to make equivalent wages, benefits, vacation time - all of that,” he said. Randy Etheridge, who followed his father into a three-decade career in preventative maintenance at the mill, is facing a tough choice. “And there are times when I can’t sleep at night.” Tough choices He was laid off after more than two decades there. “I have good days when I’m pretty confident,” said Norm Lackey, a former hazardous waste worker at the mill.

Many are older, too, and worry employers won’t look twice at someone nearing retirement. Many are resigned to the idea they won’t find jobs that pay as well. The mill, which arrived in the late 19th century and peaked at 2,600 jobs in the 1970s, will be left with just over 100 workers to keep running a machine that makes tissue products such as paper towels.Įx-employees are arriving in waves at WorkSource, as layoffs often fall near the end of the week. Large portions of the mill will be torn down starting next year and layoffs began this spring. The Atlanta, Ga.-based company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries, said demand has dwindled for communications paper, used in office copiers, printers and the like. In November, Georgia-Pacific announced it would lay off the majority of its remaining workforce in Camas. Stone Mill Drive, representatives from WorkSource try to help laid off former mill workers carve out some options, like applying for new jobs, filing for unemployment benefits or even enrolling in school. Tillery made her comments from a classroom at WorkSource Vancouver, where she recently joined a handful of ex-mill workers looking for help with life after layoffs. “I’m not devastated … (but) there’s a lot of people that work really hard that I think are devastated.” It just depends on what comes up,” she said. Her last day was June 1, though she is luckier than most because her children are grown and she can get by on her husband’s income and benefits.

“It is hard,” she said, trying to describe this past month when up to 300 workers have been laid off. The cavernous Georgia-Pacific paper mill, which churned with thousands of papermakers a generation ago, is now a ghost town, said Felicia Tillery and former workers like her are in limbo.

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