No Turkey, No Worky - audio installation - 2025

In the autumn of 1969, a machine room worker at the Simpson-Lee Paper Mill in Vicksburg, Michigan, took a few extra seconds after using the john to write a message in marker on the men’s room mirror: NO TURKEY, NO WORKY.

The archive of the National Labor Relations Board has record of only one official complaint from the union workers of the Vicksburg mill in its 96 years of operation:

Simpson Lee Paper Company and Local 13120,

International Union of District 50, Allied and

Technical Workers of the United States and

Canada.

Case 7-CA-7854

November 24, 1970

II. THE UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICE

A.   The Issues

The complaint alleges that Respondent violated Section

8(a)(5) of the Act in November 1969 by deciding to

discontinue its established practice of giving Christmas

turkeys to its employees, such decision allegedly having

been made "by Respondent unilaterally and without prior

notice to or bargaining with the Union," 

Larry Johnson, who worked in quality control in the mill for 28 years, told me it was an issue of tradition. The Lee Paper Company had been distributing holiday birds at the Vicksburg Mill for decades. When Lee Paper merged with Simpson Timber and headquarters were moved from down the road in Kalamazoo to thousands of miles away in San Francisco, there was a flurry of unrest. The first ever work stoppage at the mill was in 1965, then another strike in 1968, and now the turkeys had flown the coop. According to Larry, “management said they don't do turkeys at any of their other 13 mills, and they're not doing it in Vicksburg. But the union workers said ‘oh yes you are!’” He said even salaried workers like him had felt snubbed by the loss of the turkeys. He had been happy to see the slogan scrawled on the bathroom mirror.

Up until 1969, turkey distribution had taken place just before the long 12-day Christmas shutdown of the mill’s two roaring paper machines for annual maintenance. The company newsletter informed that all employees would receive a card to exchange for their turkey, and in the case that two members of the same household both worked at the mill, the second would be able to pick out a ham instead. This was a frequent occurrence, as the mill was a major employer in the area, with over 300 employees in a town of less than 3000. Central Michigan was paper country. Larry told me that when he was working, there were 32 paper machines running within a 50 mile radius of Vicksburg.  

In the company newsletter they would publish what I can only described as mug shots of hand tools and debris that has been accidentally dropped into the production line by workers. On the left, an intact pair of bolt cutters, on the right, an array of crushed shrapnel, below, a description of the dollar amount of damage done to the paper machine rollers by careless employees. A literal spanner in the works.

When the Vicksburg mill shuttered in 2001, it was the fifth paper mill in the area to close that year. When I came to the mill in 2025, the machine room was hollowed out, empty and silent except for the pigeons dropping feathers from the rafters and the heater that regularly cycled on to keep the place from moldering. There were gaping holes in the floor where the twin paper machines had been dismantled and shipped to Argentina. In the warehouse, the huge beater impellers torn from the pulper were piled on the floor like crashed spaceships. Larry told me that the Fox River Paper Company, the last company to acquire the Vicksburg mill in 1996, had permanently shut operations down one day short of 5 years of management, to avoid having to pay retirement benefits to certain workers.

The NLRB ruled against the union in 1970. They claimed that there was evidence that Simpson-Lee had indeed met their duty to bargain about the turkeys with union representatives. But in her decision, trial examiner Josephine H. Klein noted

“…any such bonus or "gift"

consistently bestowed for a considerable period of time is

considered a component of wages or a term or condition of

employment…it cannot be discontinued by the

employer before the Union has been given notice and

an opportunity to bargain.”

This Simpson-Lee precedent is cited in several subsequent NLRB rulings, many also concerning fights over turkeys and hams, but most recently in 2022 when healthcare workers at a private facility argued that their hazard pay bonuses, instituted by their employer during the Covid-19 pandemic, had been unlawfully revoked without bargaining. In this case, citing the Vicksburg turkeys, the NLRB ruled in favor of the union, ordering Alaris Health to repay $360,000 in back wages to employees.

6-channel audio composition – 4:56 min loop

vortex cannons (subwoofers, concrete form tubes, foam), salvaged wood, steel wire, domesticated turkey feathers - 700 x 360 x 50 cm

produced with support from Prairie Ronde Artist Residency

Installation documentation by Dan Stahl

Archival images courtesy of the Vicksburg Historical Society