The Gubmit didn't shaft the Timber Workers, the Timber Industry shafted the Timber Workers and blamed it on Environmental Laws that wouldn't let them clear cut National Parks and Wildlife Refuges, because they were all out of everything else.
The timber industry used the loggers, truckers and millers as long as they were needed, and when they ran out of timber, they tossed them aside and left the government holding the bag for retraining and welfare.

Slimy Slade's last big gift to the industry was his "Salvage Rider" that used such loosely worded terminology that it opened up the last reserves of USFS land to Weyerhauser, Simpson, Menasha, and Pope & Talbot.


And one last thing--Trees only take a few decades to grow back, but healthy forests take hundreds of years to grow back. That thing about not seeing the forest for the trees sums up conservative short sightedness and greed.
It only takes a matter of years of silt, sunlight and log jams for a salmon run to be completely exterminated in a stream system.