WVFA eNews Weekly

The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce has filed comments with the West Virginia Division of Labor (DOL) regarding its proposed rules for minimum wage and maximum hours regulations. The Chamber remains deeply concerned about the proposed rules. The impact on employers could be significant. They are lengthy, complex and challenging in their scope and could make it harder for employers to add employees. Ironically, these rules are being proposed at a time when West Virginia has the highest unemployment rate in the United States.

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The West Virginia Forestry Association Inc. Board of Directors, working with the American Loggers Council (WVLC), has determined to work more closely with WV loggers at loggers’ direction and within the bounds of the WVFA mission. Therefore, was be a meeting of interested loggers and others at the Canaan Resort and Conference Center, near Davis, WV, on Saturday, July 11, in order to begin a "WV Loggers Council."

The meeting was held to review initial documents needed to form the group, elect directors of the Council and to learn about any issues of interest to the WV logging community that may be addressed by the group and/or advocated for by the WVFA at the WV capitol.

A set of draft by-laws was presented to the 22 loggers and logger-representatives gathered. Certain edits were made to the document and that updated charter will be published by WVFA, soon. The WVLC determined that logging representatives should be chosen from each of the six WV Areas used by WVFA, plus one from the Mountain Loggers Cooperative Association. The initial Executive Committee of the Council are: Anthony Raines, Rick Smith, Jerry Huffman, Jay Johnston, Curt Hassler, Donald Parker and the group elected Harry Vance as Chair. The primary concerns of the Council was centered in the improvement of Loggers’ workers compensation costs and availability.

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Bryan Humphreys, WVFA's Logger of the year for 2014, has just been selected as the Forest Resources Association's Appalachian Region Outstanding Logger for 2015. He will be presented with his award at the FRA Regional Meeting in Asheville, NC, on Sept. 23. More publicity will be forthcoming after he receives the award in September.

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The West Virginia Sustainable Forestry Initiative’s (SFI) Implementation Committee (SIC) met to conduct its regular bi-annual meeting, the Canaan Valley Resort & Conference Center. This is the first anniversary meeting of the group, since the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed by the SIC and the West Virginia Forestry Association to initiate a SFI Program conducted by the WVFA as an organization, rather than by a designated individual WVFA staffer.

The new SFI Tri-Fold brochure, containing website links, to replace the SFI Landowner Packet, was discussed and examples of similar documents were shared to improve the first draft.

Visit https://www.naylornetwork.com/wvf-nwl/articles/?aid=331644&issueID=41978 to view the full article online.