With the holiday season now in full swing, a recent Associated Press article, republished in The Oregonian, highlighted both the importance of the Christmas tree industry to our local economy and the importance of workplace safety.
The Salem-datelined piece begins with the image of 50,000 freshly cut Christmas trees stacked in a Polk County loading area near Dallas, Oregon. “Some 200 workers are busy at the site,” the news agency notes. “Tree after tree is placed on mechanical shakers to remove loose needles, run through bailing machines and wrapped with twine, tossed on a conveyer belt and, finally, loaded into trucks.”
Oregon is the country’s top grower of Christmas Trees, producing a stunning 6.4 million during last year’s holiday season. While Christmas tree harvesting is significantly different from the larger, year-round lumber industry it is still dangerous work – involving, as the article indicates, potentially dangerous machinery operated in the open, including chainsaws.