TAYLORSVILLE, MS. October 14, 1998 -- Georgia-Pacific Resins Inc. today honored its 77 employees at Taylorsville at a ceremony celebrating the resin plant’s acceptance into the Star Level of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Voluntary Protection Program (VPP).

“The quality of your safety and health program is excellent,” Charles N. Jeffress, assistant secretary, U.S. Department of Labor, said in a letter to the Taylorsville plant. “The proof of this lies in your low injury and lost workday rates that have resulted from implementing effective systems, including training and employee involvement, to protect employees at your facility.”

“Safety always has been a top priority in our company,” said Lee Thomas, Georgia-Pacific Corp. executive vice president - paper and chemicals. “We are proud of our employees at Taylorsville for this accomplishment and their commitment to putting safety first.”

“We congratulate plant manager Mike Lee and all of our Taylorsville employees for achieving Star Level status,” said Mario Concha, vice president - chemicals and resins. “The Taylorsville facility is now the first Georgia-Pacific Chemical Division facility, as well as one of fewer than 400 facilities in the United States that can boast of achieving this outstanding safety program recognition.”

“We are pleased to be recognized as a safety leader,” Lee said. “Our employees have invested a lot of energy to create a safer work environment in our plant.”

Georgia-Pacific has led all large forest products companies in workplace safety for the past five years. Its chemical facilities had an OSHA incident rate of 2.3 in 1997, almost half of the chemical industry average of 4.3 (number of injuries per 100 employees per year), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Taylorsville plant had one recordable injury in 1997 for an incident rate of 1.04 and, since 1990, it has reduced its OSHA rate by more than 86 percent.

The OSHA “Star” designation requires that a facility have exceptional safety programs in place, the commitment of management and the employees to the program, and achievement of injury incident and lost workday injury rates at or below the industry average for chemical plants. Upon consideration into this very elite program, an OSHA evaluation team visits the plant for a week to review safety programs and records, conduct a physical inspection of the plant and interview employees to verify that the plant’s safety program truly is one of the best.

“Employees and management have worked cooperatively to develop and implement their safety and health programs,” according to OSHA’s on-site assessment team, which recommended the Taylorsville plant for the Star designation. The team said in its report that the plant’s health and safety program is “a good example of what can be accomplished by management and employees working together.”

Mississippi Gov. Kirk Fordice added his congratulations in a letter. “The implementation of safety and health programs with exemplary standards is indeed an accomplishment,” Fordice said. “I am proud to offer my best wishes to your employees. This achievement reflects positively on the Taylorsville area and the entire State of Mississippi.”

Georgia-Pacific, one of the world’s leading manufacturers and distributors of pulp, paper and building products and related chemicals, consists of two distinct operating groups -- the Georgia-Pacific Group (NYSE: GP) which includes the pulp, paper and building products business, and The Timber Company (NYSE: TGP) which manages 5.8 million acres of timberland in North America.
Georgia-Pacific Resins Inc., which is the chemical division of Georgia-Pacific, is a market leader in chemical products for the building products and pulp and paper industries as well as other industrial manufacturing processes. Georgia-Pacific operates 19 chemical manufacturing operations and related research facilities in the United States.