ior Se iia OT

THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

2nd Issue
Sept. 1964

“ROM PAGE 1

because actions of the Regional Executive
Board were never challenged and everyone
on the Regional Executive Board abided by
majority decisions of that Board.

Veto delayed
essential plans

of the Regional Executive Board has
been challenged, and since there is no pro-
vision for authority in the Regional constitu-
tion, the majority of the Regional Executive
Board — representing the majority of the
36,000 members of this Union — found
themselves blocked and vetoed by a minor-
ity.
This has resulted in a millwright’s training
program not being implemented.

: + hag our last convention the authority

: It has resulted in first aid men not getting
* an upward revision in rates of pay because
s one Local Union refused to authorize the Re-
re gional Council to negotiate an upward re-
vision.

It has resulted in the fallers and buckers
at Kelsey Bay being unable to have negoti-
ated for them rates and conditions governing
fire-fighting equipment.

And unless it is corrected it will continue
to result in the membership not receiving
benefits which could be negotiated for them
between broad negotiations.

The only way to get around this problem
without changing the constitution was to find
some method by which people could be persu-
aded to accept the will of the majority; but,

as President Hartung pointed out in an official
ruling of June 22, 1964.

“There is one weakness in our constitu-
tion: it depends on the honour of the indi-
vidual to live up to his oath of office. The
constitution coes not provide any penalty
against an officer or a member who does
not go along with the will of the majority.”

This meant that in the past nine months
we have been attempting to administer a Re-
gional Council where any one individual on
the Regional Executive Board could veto the
decision of all others.

| would like to thank my fellow officers
and all those Regional Executive Board mem-
bers who have continued to work for the
members under such a handicap. This con-
vention will be given the opportunity to put
some teeth in our constitution which will once
again allow a majority decision to be con-

cluded.

ce ol i, hy eulina memati fa ee

Ensure authority
to finish tasks

BECAUSE our Regional constitution is to be
revised at this convention, and any re-
visions to our constitution will decide author-
_ ity and the structure under which we will
operate, | should point out the issue as | see

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it. You can amend our constitution to confer
certain authority on the duly elected execu-
tive board, subject only to the will of the
membership by secret referendum ballot, or
we can withhold any authority and, in effect,
have a Regional Council which is only a clear-
ing house for sixteen completely independent
and uncoordinated Local Unions.
If it is our decision — and | hope it is —
to vest the duly elected Regional Executive
‘Board with authority to conclude the tasks
that the membership, through convention,
give them, then we can look forward to
years of growth and prosperity. We can
assure that the IWA brings into membership
the many thousands of loggers and wood-
workers who will soon be employed in the
rapidly expanding north country.

We can also ensure that the tasks that
various conventions give us can be carried out
and finalized.

If it is your decision that each and every
Local should continue to maintain the right to
veto and not abide by majority rule, then
complete anarchy will be the result, and the
problems that face the membership on nego-
tiated training programs, upward revision
and uniform seniority will be impossible to
correct.

Members to state
strike fund rules

T THIS convention also we shall have com-

plete discussion on the Regional Execu-
tive Board’s handling of the finances of the
Regional Council over the years, particularly
in reference to Strike Fund expenditures. This
convention will be the first real opportunity
since the groundless accusation of illegally
using funds was made against the Regional
Executive Board, where members of the IWA
will hear all the facts relating to Strike Fund
Expenditures, and to decide whether or not
the actions taken by the Regional Council
over the years and ratified by membership
in convention were right and proper.

As an individual member, and as an of-
ficer who has been accused of allowing illegal
expenditures in our Union, | welcome the op-
portunity that this convention will afford to
shed truth and fact where now accusations
and confusion exist.

Training program
to protect jobs

E MUST look also, at this convention, to

the challenges which face woodwork-

ers in western Canada in the coming years.

The industrial society of tomorrow is going

to be of a complex and highly automated na-

ture. The skills which were required yester-

day, like those of the harness-maker and the

horse-shoer of sixty years ago will no longer
be required.

In their place new skills, new tech-
niques, will have to be learned; and we
must insure that the present members of
our Union are given the training and are
allowed to acquire these skills at no expense
to themselves. If we fail them in this, it
will mean that many people will become
redundant and useless, while younger men,
who have been taught the new technology
in skills will be replacing them.

Towards this end the 1962 convention in-

| structed the Regional officers to negotiate a

Fwy

“LETS GET ON WITH OUR WORK”

. . - MOORE

training program for millwrights under which

all terms of the master Agreement would be
applicable, thus protecting every tradesmen
and further: That all employees participating
in the plan, who would be required to attend
vocational training school should receive their
regular rate of pay while attending school.

After a year of solid negotiating by a
committee from the Executive Board, these .
principles were incorporated into a proposed
Millwright’s Training Program. Even though
the 1962 convention unanimously instructed
that this be done, and even though the reports
at the Regional Executive Board by the Com-
mittee were unanimously endorsed, certain .
Locals used their veto power to stop the im-
plementation of something that they had
themselves agreed to all during the time it
was being negotiated.

The major issue appeared to be that all
millwrights, whether or not they could
qualify, should automatically receive certi-
ficates from the government. This would, in
effect, make such certificates meaningless
and of no value. If we are to truly protect
members of the IWA from becoming re-
dundant and obsolete, we cannot do it by
pretending they now have the skills which
will be needed tomorrow, but only by in-
suring that if they don’t now possess those
skills they will be retrained at full pay so
that no members of the International Wood-
workers of America need fear nor feel in-
secure in the industrial complex of the
future.

The IWA must extend this type of retrain-
ing program and make it available to all
trades in the industry, as well as to the pro-
duction workers.

This is a task to which the incoming execu-
tive must diligently apply themselves before
time has completely run out and the new
vocation schools have dumped on the labour
market thousands of young people who are

equipped to meet the requirements of the
new technology.

Industry expansion
challenges Union

ANOTHER challenge which we must face in

the coming years is the tremendous ex-
pansion of the industry in areas which, until
now, have been completely inaccessible. Only
in the past year have any concrete steps been
taken to tap the tremendous forest wealth of
the northern half of British Columbia.

In the forseeable future, the vast forest
wealth of the Yukon Territory will be open-
ed up by pulp, paper and lumber com-
panies. When this happens we must have
a Regional Council that is strong enough
and with the financial resources to organize
the thousands of woodworkers who will be
employed in these areas.

Some time ago | attended a meeting in
Portland of five international Unions, all con-
cerned with the wood products industry. These
Unions were: The International Longshore-
men‘s and Warehousemen’s Union, the Lumber
& Sawmill Workers, the Pulp and Sulphite
Workers, the Teamsters and the IWA.

The concern of the representatives from
these Unions was: “What will happen to the
Union members in all five unions with the -
advent of automated plants and the newer,
high speed methods of transporting lumber,
pulp and paper?” It was obvious to those of

See “MOORE” — Page 8