A gyppo or gypo logger is a logger who runs or works for a small-scale

logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. Logging is the beginning of a supply cha ...

operation that is independent from an established

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

or lumber company. The gyppo system is one of two main patterns of historical organization of logging labor in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Thou ...

United States, the other being the "company logger". Gyppo loggers were originally condemned by the

Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...

(IWW) as

strikebreaker A strikebreaker (sometimes called a scab, blackleg, or knobstick) is a person who works despite a strike. Strikebreakers are usually individuals who were not employed by the company before the trade union dispute but hired after or during the st ...

s. After the founding of a government-sponsored

company union A company or "yellow" union is a worker organization which is dominated or unduly influenced by an employer, and is therefore not an independent trade union. Company unions are contrary to international labour law (see ILO Convention 98, Article ...

, the

Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen The Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen (LLLL), commonly known as the "Four L" (4L), was a company union found in the United States during World War I in 1917 by the United States War Department, War Department as a counter to the Industrial W ...

, weakened the influence of the IWW on the logging industry, attitudes towards gyppos changed, and they came to be seen by the victorious bosses and scabs as a normal component of the timber business in a less ideologically charged context.

Etymology and context

The term "gyppo" is specific to the

region of the United States and Canada. According to E.B. Mittelman, it "may be a derivation from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

word, signifying

vulture A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including Condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to North and ...

, or may simply be a derivation or corruption of the word gypsy." In either case, notes Mittelman, "it has something of the cunning or predacious in it." The term "gyppo" was commonly prepended to form nicknames among loggers, e.g. "Gyppo Jake". The word was introduced by the

(IWW) to disparage strikebreakers and other loggers who thwarted their organizing efforts. The IWW currently uses the term to refer to "Any piece-work system; a job where the worker is paid by the volume they produce, rather than by their time." Mittelman quotes an editorial from the ''

Industrial Worker The ''Industrial Worker'', "the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism", is the magazine of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It is currently released quarterly. The publication is printed and edited by union labor, and is frequently ...

'' on the subject:

At present the master class of capitalists call it 'contract labor,' 'piece work,' and other fancy names...For us, the proletarians, it is 'gyppoing' and it means all that the name connotes. The gyppo is a man who 'gyps' his fellow workers and finally himself, out of the fruits of all our organized victories in the class war."

The term lost most of its derisive connotation after the decline of the IWW's influence in the lumber industry.

The gyppo system

The "gyppo logger" is generally considered the opposite of the "company logger", who is employed by a lumber company or lumber mill at an hourly or daily wage and generally belongs to a

labor union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (s ...

. Gyppos, on the other hand, work for themselves, run economically marginal operations, and employ a small crew on a fixed-price basis, although they occasionally work for mills on a flat-rate, contract, or

piecework Piece work (or piecework) is any type of employment in which a worker is paid a fixed piece rate for each unit produced or action performed, regardless of time. Context When paying a worker, employers can use various methods and combinations of ...

basis. The IWW first introduced the term ''gyppo'' during the unsuccessful 1917–18 Pacific Northwest loggers' strike, which called for an

eight-hour day The eight-hour day movement (also known as the 40-hour week movement or the short-time movement) was a social movement to regulate the length of a working day, preventing excesses and abuses. An eight-hour work day has its origins in the ...

for loggers, although undoubtedly gyppo loggers existed before this date. Because the strike was unsuccessful, after the loggers returned to work they called a

slowdown A slowdown ( UK: go-slow) is an industrial action in which employees perform their duties but seek to reduce productivity or efficiency in their performance of these duties. A slowdown may be used as either a prelude or an alternative to a stri ...

. This tactic was so effective that in response the company owners instituted piecework or flat-rate pay scales. Pine timber in the Pacific Northwest is comparatively small and much of it is on government-owned land (disallowing the use of railways to transport logs); these conditions facilitate logging with small crews and portable machinery. Technological developments after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

made gyppo logging even more economically rewarding, especially the invention of gasoline-powered

chainsaw A chainsaw (or chain saw) is a portable gasoline-, electric-, or battery-powered saw that cuts with a set of teeth attached to a rotating chain driven along a guide bar. It is used in activities such as tree felling, limbing, bucking, pru ...

s, which were light enough to be used by a single person, and the use of

diesel engines The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

to power "

donkeys The domestic donkey is a hoofed mammal in the family Equidae, the same family as the horse. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a ...

" that had previously been powered by steam. Gyppos of this era also took advantage of the increased affordability of light industrial equipment, such as trucks and

Caterpillar tractors Continuous track is a system of vehicle propulsion used in tracked vehicles, running on a continuous band of treads or track plates driven by two or more wheels. The large surface area of the tracks distributes the weight of the vehicle b ...

, and typically employed family labor in order to keep their operations economically viable. According to William Robbins, writing on the postwar timber boom in the

Coos Bay Coos Bay is an estuary where the Coos River enters the Pacific Ocean, the estuary is approximately 12 miles long and up to two miles wide. It is the largest estuary completely within Oregon state lines. The Coos Bay watershed covers an area of abou ...

region of

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

The immediate postwar years in southwestern Oregon were the heyday of the storied gyppo logging and sawmill operator—the hardy individual who worked on marginal capital, usually through subcontracts with a major company or broker, and whose equipment was invariably pieced together with baling wire.

By the mid-1950s, over-extraction of timber had begun to reduce the economic incentive to practice gyppo logging. By the 1970s, environmental regulation and other economic changes in the logging industry had driven many gyppo loggers out of business. By the early 21st century, gyppo loggers were described as "an endangered species."

Etymology and context

The gyppo system

See also

References

Further reading