B.C. LUMBER WORKER

__ Published Bi-Weekly, Every Second Monday by
BC. DISTRICT COUNCIL, International Woodworkers of America

Editor: NIGEL MORGAN
Managing Editor: B, J. MELSNESS

n 504 Holden Building — Phone PAcific 4151 — Vancouver, B.C.
Make Payments to: “I.W.A., B.C. District Council”

Time and One-Half

Sosa International Woodworkers of America welcomes the
announcement this week that consideration is being given
to a Government Regulation providing overtime pay for the
sawmill industry. The fact that logging and sawmilling are the
only two industries in B.C. where the time-and-one-half pro-
vision does not apply to all Government overtime permits, is
sufficient evidence that this step is long overdue.

The Provincial Department of Labour and, particularly, the
Board of Industrial Relations, are to be highly commended for
the steps now being taken to make this provision law.

In Canada, as in other countries, collective agreements play
an important part in establishing the structure of relations be-
tween employees and their employers. In a recent report pub-
lished by Queen’s University of Kingston, Ontario, an analysis
is made of 150 collective agreements secured from a wide vari-
ety of industries, unions and geographic’areas, . . . a sample of
conditions of employment for close to 220,000 Canadian work-
ers. According to this University Report, “overtime is most
frequently paid for Sunday work (85-percent of the agree-
y ments); for holidays (81 percent); and for work for more than
the standard hours per day or night (71 percent).”

‘ Difficulty is frequently found in placing in effect a longer
. work week than that to which workers have been accustomed.
To make this acceptable, it is necessary to bring out the full
realization of the need for the all-out effort, and give as much
consideration as possible to employees’ normal living habits.
It is reasonable to assume that where employees have to work
longer than their:normal week, they should share this sacrifice
equally with their employer. The employee sacrifices time and
energy that might otherwise be spent with his family or in
leisure time activities, and in return the employer pays a penalty
overtime rate. Such incentive rates for overtime work must
certainly result in improved morale and increased production.

Extracts from various union agreements and Government
regulations for other industries afford ample evidence that the
principle of overtime pay for all work performed on Sundays,
Statoutory Holidays, and in excess of eight hours in any one day
or forty-egiht hours in any one week, has obtained general
recognition throughout Canada. For the great majority of wood-
workers, Sunday is the day usually put aside for leisure time,
activities with the family, for rest and for religious observances.
When they are denied these privileges, we believe that, in com-
mon with hundreds of thousands of other workers throughout
Canada, they should be granted compensation in the form of
premium overtime rates. Overtime and hour of work conditions
prevailing in that lumbering and woodworking industry closest
to British Columbia, namely, the United States Pacific North-
west indicate that the conditions sought by the I.W.A. in its
brief to the Regional War Labour Board and representations to
the Board of Industrial Relations have béen established work-
ing conditions for the past several years.

The International Woodworkers of America urges that the
regulations being proposed for the sawmill industry be extended
to shingle mills, plywood plants and logging camps. The Inter-
national Woodworkers stands ready and will welcome the op-
portunity of making representations toward this end.

Greek War Relief

s oe people of Greece are in need of assistance to relieve a
situation of starvation which has been brought about
through invasion of their country by the fascists, Today in
Athens and Piracas, hundreds of people are dying every day
from starvation. The whole population is threatened with com-
plete extinction unless more food is available. If ever a people
were worthy of our support and assistance, the people of Greece
_are today. Their staunch resistance to the fascist hordes took a
tremendous toll of the enemy and gave the Allied Nations valu-
time in which to prepare for attack in other sections. And

it is more, Greece is still fighting .The Greek Army and
Force fought in Egypt and their Navy is now fighting on
Mediterranean Sea and in the Indian Ocean. It is the duty
every Canadian citizen, who has as their prime objective the

ng of the war against fascism, to contribute assistance to
people who are now feeling the full force of fascist ag-

‘The Greek War Relief Fund is conducting a campaign

shout Canada to raise half a million dollars for this pur-
The B.C. District Council of the International Wood-
of America has endorsed the drive and calls upon its
to it to the limit. It is a matter of life or
or death of a few Greeks, but of Greece

. B.C. LUMBHR WOREKBDR

Pass the
A\mmunition.

RAC MacLEOD, RRH, R101285,
c/o RAF, Luga, Malta.
March 25, 1943.

Dear Mr. Editor,—Please forgive the liberty I have taken in
writing, because I feel that you and your staff have your hands
full and all your spare time must be taken up by the good work
you are doing. Please do not feel obliged to acknowledge this
letter.

First, I must introduce myself. I am one of the 21 lads who
were fired at the end of January of 1941 at the Veneer plant of

Canadian Western Lumber Company, and was
| one of the five lads, including Tom Farrell, in
| one of your first cells when the organization
| began. I am sure that if you look in your files
you will find all the details verifying my state-
ments. I am sorry to say that I have been
away so long now that I have lost all touch
with the IWA and cannot even remember the
name of our organizer. I’ve often wondered
how your people fared with that company, and

Rod MacLeod having had no news from home that would
shed a little light on the subject, I've had to walt for someone
to tell me all about it. Today, I had a letter from my father-in-law,
dated October 8th, referring to the scale of wages paid at Fraser
Mills, and also mentioning that they were organized.’ I am honestly
glad to hear that, and feel that the seed sown in late 1940 did not
fall on barren ground, despite the fact that some of us lost our
jobs through it. If, after I get back home, I pay delinquent dues
on my union card, would it make my original card valid, or would
such a lapse of time require the issue of a new one? If you could
get the organizer of my cell to write me at this address, I would
be only too pleased to write him a long personal letter giving him
all the other news about myself and several of the other lads, He
was a swell fellow, and I would certainly like to get in touch with
him, I’m sorry that I can’t remember his name.

On May 6th next, I shall have been in the Air Force two years,
17 months of that being spent overseas; eight months of this in
England and the rest in Malta,

In the past few weeks, I've received notice of one remuster
and a promotion; the latter one, I am now waiting for confirma-
tion from H.Q. We are getting along fine here, having had a good
Christmas and New Year. Very soon we expect to get parcels of
comforts from our Welfare Officer in Cairo, Egypt. So we are
not doing too badly at all. Of course, we all long to get back home,
but that can’t very well be until the job is finished.

All we want out here from you fellows is the result of consci-
entious work in your factories. Send us the stuff and we'll put it
to good use. The more you send, the sooner we'll get home! So
keep the production line rolling!

The best of luck in your organization of the timber industry
in British Columbia. Some day soon I hopé’to be an active mem-
ber again of the IWA.

The best of everything to you all from us who are in the

Services, Yours sincerely,

RODERICK MacLEOD.

Itchy Feet

r THE lumbering industry today, there probably exists one
of the highest labor turnovers in any war industry. It is

time that workers in this industry took a few minutes to think
about what this means.

Today B.C. lumber is playing a vital role in the winning of
the war. It is our duty to keep it coming. Changing from one
job to another means valuable man-hours lost, which in turn
means thousands of feet of lumber production lost also. Can
we afford to allow this situation to continue? We cannot and
we must not. The main reason given for changing from one job
to another is that the camp or mill has poor conditions and low
wages. This fact is appreciated by everyone, but moving to
another job doesn’t solve the problem. Someone else is filling
the job you leave and the conditions remain the same. What
is the solution? — Better the conditions and make the pay just
compensation for the work performed. It may be asked, how
can this be done? — The answer is, by building the union; by
building it in every camp and mill and fighting militantly for
improved and stabilized wages and working conditions, for the
establishment of labor-management production committees so
that our armed forces will not lack the necessary lumber to
complete the job.

It is the duty of every organized woodworker to stay on the
job and continue to fight for these things, Constantly moving
from one job to another only aggravates the situation and gives
unscrupulous employers that much more chance to defeat the
union.

Hello Boys:
According to the papers, it looks
like the boss loggers, through

their union, have decided that they
are not going to have any relations
with the union of their employees’
choice without going through ne-
gotiotions, conciliation, arbitration,

more negotiatons, etc., ete, Accord-

ing to what I read in the papers,
at least the only: two papers Ihave
seen in this neck of the woods this
month, Lake Log and Industrial
Timber Mills have both decided

not to sign an agreement with the
union without going through all
this’ “rigmarole.”

It reminds me of an old partner
of mine, a pretty badly broken
down old fellow, who had been bush-
elling so long (x said bushelling
not bushy) that he was getting
desperate and on the verge of com-
Mitting suicide. He tells me after
sitting around a Vancouver hotel
lobby for a couple of months he
decided, as a last resort, to go and
see the famous pschycologist, Dr.
Klink. He couldn’t sleep; he had
lost his grip and Klink agreed that
suicide was the only way out for
him, suggesting that he run him-
self to death. “After supper,” he
advised, “tell the boys you are go
ing for a walk. But don’t walk.
Run as hard as you can. This
bushelling hag pretty well worn you
down and probably your heart is
bad and you will drop dead. None
will know. There will be no dis-
grace.”

Ole thought the suggestion was
perfect. That night he started in
run, but self-preservation took con-
trol and he stopped far short of
running 60 long that he would drop
dead. He returned to the hotel
and for the first time in months
put in a good night’s sleep. The
next night he tried it again. The
result was the same, a good night's
sleep. By the third night, he was
feeling so fine he wanted to live
for ever.

And that story has a moral for
the boss loggers in this province,
Ever since the union won that big
victory last February when they
got the ICA Act amended, some of
the big guys in this province have
been running on the verge of’ com-
mitting suicide. If they would only
quit trying to give us boys the run-
around, and get down to business
like management and labor has in
other industries, they would fing
that us guys in the camps ana
mills are no different to boys in the
shipyards, on the railroads, in the
printing trades, in the pulp mills
and on the fishing grounds where
union recognition and genuine col-
lective bargaining has worked out
to the advantage of all concerned,

a ae

In spite of the heavy income
tax, there are more people in Bri-

tain saving, lending and gi;
, vin,
than ever before, :