” THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER ~ WORKER AUTHORIZED AS SECOND CLASS MAIL, POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, OTTAWA, AND FOR PAYMENT OF POSTAGE IN CASH. VOL. XXXII, No. 6 VANCOUVER, B.C. 5c PER COPY 2nd Issue March, 1966 SS CONCILIATION STARTS -O.T.E.U. x s a STRIKE The tiny Office and Tech- ” nical Employees Union, Local No. 15, which in 1964, with the » aid of other B.C. Unions, humbled the mighty empire of ~ MacMillan, Bloedel & Powell > River, is now battling another _ industrial giant. Twenty-seven OTEU mem- bers employed at the Annacis » Island plant of the multi-mil- . determined struggle to bring | lion dollar Sherwin-Williams Paint Company have been on strike for over a month in a their wages to a subsistence level. The Company, whose total current assets in 1964 were over $14,000,000, and whose net sales for the same year were $35,369,794, has shown a supreme indifference to the . welfare of its employees. The top salary paid to a * striker prior to the strike was ~ t 2 ” » Cee oo ae 2 . clerks to $330 a month. This was to a married man with six chil- dren. The salaries of other office employees ranged from $180 a month for checking $275 a month for branch stock clerks. The OTEU, which was granted certification for the office employees last October, is seeking wage increases of OFFICE & TECHIVICAL EMPLOYEES UN\ON - | fet @> | Be) ny i ar ERWIN-WICLIAMS OTEU MEMBERS Darlene Robertson, from $60 to $106 a month. This, the Union says, will still leave its Sherwin - Williams members earning well below the income the Canadian Wel- fare Council estimates is need- ed to live on. The Company, which has plants in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver, has so far refused to sign a col- lective agreement with the Union. During negotiations, a “) syepWiN-WILLIAMS CO OF CANADA LTD. OFFICE S TECHNICAL EMPLOYEES UNION LOCAL 15 H SHERWIN-WILLIAMS } OF CANADA LTD. Dee Paré and Wendy King picket one of the retail outlets of their em- ployer, the Sherwin-Williams Paint Company of Canada, as the strike of the office workers for improved wages and a collective agreement at the Company’s plant on Annacis Island moves into its second month. conciliation board chairman recommended a $45 a month increase over two years to the employees but this suggestion was rejected by both the Union and the Company. The employees, divided equally between men and women, have effectively pre- vented the Company’s plant See “STRIKE”—Page 2 SHERLOCK NAMED The Minister of Labour has appointed Mr. John Sherlock as conciliation officer in the dispute between the IWA and the coast lumber operators. ! Mr. Sherlock announced that discussions between the dis- puting parties, under his direction, would start April 12th. Jack Moore, spokesman for the IWA Coast Negotiating Committee, immediately tendered assurances of full coopera- tion to Mr. Sherlock in all efforts to reach a mutually satis- factory settlement. The Labour Relations Act allows the conciliation officer ten days in which to make his report, unless an extension is authorized by the minister or agreed to by the parties. In his report to the minister, the conciliation officer may: (a) recommend the appointment of a conciliation board, or (b) recommend terms of settlement, or (c) recommend only that no conciliation board be ap- pointed. WORKERS TO PAY Workers in the forest products industry of British Columbia may well ask if their employers expect them to accept com- paratively poor contract conditions in order to subsidize in part their present tremendous program of expansion. New capital invested by the forest products industry last year reached $250,000,000, a gain of 18% over 1964 and 75% over 1963. Of the $250,000,000 expansion last year, $44,000,000 was spent on logging, $42,000,000 in the mills, and $164,000,000 on pulp and paper. ‘ This is reflected in their financial statements indicating a marked increase in net worth. More than $575,000,000 is now appropriated for new plants and expansion. MacMillan, Bloedel & Powell River Limited now have a $128,000,000 expansion program under way. All the employers combined now have construction under way that will cost $345,000,000, in addition to which they plan construction to the value of $841,000,000. While this expansion is welcome, it must be said that when their estimates of the IWA demands are placed side by side with their estimates for expansion, the IWA demands look very modest indeed. IWA WORKERS SHORT-CHANGED ON WAGES By Staff Reporter Is the IWA 1966 wage demand as “unrealistic” as the em- ployers’ most recent newsletter claims? The IWA Coast Negotiating Committee says “No”, emphatic- ally, and refutes the employers’ charge with a wealth of statistics. Actually, lumber workers have been short-changed on wages. The present demand for a 50 cent an hour increase is really a “catch-up” demand, it is pointed out. The IWA wage demand aims to rectify in part this “wrong-way” income distribution which impedes economic growth. In the last period of report, production per man year in B.C. logging increased by 29.6%. For the same period, wage costs per 1,000 f.b.m. were 21.3% lower. In sawmills, production per worker rose 60.9%, while wage costs per 1,000 f.b.m. dropped 20.4%. Evidence which supports the union‘s view relates to the fol- lowing factors in wage determination. (a) The rise in living costs which has lowered the purchas- ing value of the wage dollar. (b) The increased output per man hour which has lowered the employers’ labour cost per unit. (c) The general trend of wage settlements in other indus- tries. Lumber workers have been short-changed in wages due to the fact that increases in wages have not kept pace with the rate of increase in productivity. They have not received an equit- able share of the very real gains in the marketing of lumber __ resulting from the rapid rise in output per man hour of labour. “Wrong-way” Income Distribution failure of real wages to keep pace with increased pro- Kp in part why profits have risen so fantastically, In plywood production, the output per manhour rose 49.2% while wage costs were down by 10% for the unit of production. Since the latest statistics were issued by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, the trend towards lowered labour costs per unit has accelerated, as industry reports show. Unit Labour Costs Affect Prices Unit labour costs are the costs which have the greatest mean- ing in price. The consumer pays for lumber by the unit. The price which he pays must cover the cost of the labour embodied in the unit, not the cost of labour per hour. Even when the cost of labour per hour may go up, unit labour costs may very well go down as they have in recent years in the lumber industry. See “IWA WORKERS”—Page 3