LOGAL WINS
CERTIFICATION

Local 1-417 IWA, Kamloops, has been
granted certification for the two hundred
employees of the Downie Street Sawmills
Ltd. in Revelstoke.

The certification was granted by the
Labour Relations Board February 17, fol-
lowing application by the Local Union.

The operation was organized by the Local
officers with the assistance of the Regional
organizers and was the second attempt to
win certification.

The first attempt to organize the crew was
unsuccessful when the Union was defeated
by three votes in a representation vote
conducted by the Labour Relations Board in
1980.

COLLEGE HAS
LONG HISTORY

By BARBARA L. MacDONALD
Co-ordinator

Frontier College is Canada’s oldest Adult
Education Institution as it has been bring-
ing education to the people since 1899. As
mandated by Parliament in 1922, the Col-
lege provides educational opportunity for
disadvantaged Canadians. Frontier College
was awarded the UNESCO award for meri-
tous work in adult education and literacy in
1977. It is an educational model both nation-
ally and internationally.

Currently, Frontier College is attempting
to revitalize the Injured Workers’ Program.
This experimental program was operative
for a year before it was terminated due to
lack of funding. The program was conceived
by the former co-ordinator Rafael Ramarez,
who was an injured worker who had under-
gone treatment at the Workmen’s Compen-
sation Board Rehabilitation Centre at
Downsview. He proposed that a voluntary
English as a Second Language and Literacy
program be offered at the Rehabilitation
Centre. Preliminary negotiations were held
with the representatives of the College,
Canadian Labour Congress and the Work-
men’s Compensation Board participating.
Permission to commence the program was
received from the director of the Rehabili-
tation Centre.

The Injured Workers’ Program consists of
two phases. The first phase is to establish
contact with Injured Workers who are
interested in acquiring better language and
literacy skills. During this phase, contact is
made in the Centre with the injured worker
and tutoring begins. Due to inconsistent
periods of stay at the Centre the injured
worker is not able to have an educational
experience that has lasting impact. It is at
this crucial point that phase two of the
program is operationalized.

Phase two of the Injured Workers’ pro-
gram is based on the assumption that if the
injured worker experiences a positive educa-
tional experience while she or he isa patient
in the Centre, that following their release
they will want to pursue a similar expe-
rience in their home community. Frontier
College has developed a province-wide

_ network of its life members, field-workers

and sustaining members who will respond
to support the injured worker in his or her
effort to find suitable Literacy or English as
a Second Language program in their own
community. With this type of vital support
the injured worker can be encouraged to
participate in an on-going program where
the educational impact will be greater than
the short-term impact of the “in Centre”
program described in phase one.

The Injured Workers’ program has been
revitalized with the hiring of a full-time
co-ordinator who has submitted a re-entry
proposal to the Workmen’s Compenasation
Board. Response to that proposal has in part
been negative as the Workmen’s Compensa-
tion Board is suggesting that the College use
only a referral system working with their
vocational rehabilitation counsellors as a
means of contacting injured workers. This
referral system is currently under negotia-
tion with the Board. However, in addition to
the referral system, other sources of contact
with injured workers are actively being
sought. In particular, discussions are being
held with the Ontario Federation of Labour
in the hope that a joint effort between
various unions and Frontier College will
help to establish a system whereby injured
workers in need of a Literacy program can
be identified and supported by the Injured
Workers’ program.

NABOB STRIKERS
WIN VICTORY

Nabob employees have voted seventy per
cent in favour of accepting a new two-year
agreement which will give them wage
increases of twenty-five per cent, improved
vacations and time off conditions.

The most contentious issue of the long and
bitter strikelockout was hours of work. The
new contract will allow the office employees
to work a nine-hour, four-day week or a five-
day week if they choose, for which they will
receive two and one-half hours accumulated
time off.

Plant employees will work two four-day
weeks and two fiveday weeks and will
receive five hours accumulated time off.

Wages will increase by $1.30 an hour in
both years of the agreement, retroactive to
last June 1.

The warehousemen’s base rate will now
be $11.92 per hour and will increase to $13.22
next June 1. Base rate for office workers
climbs to $9.80 and to $11.10 in June.

WORKERS PROTEST
SECRET CODES

The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile
Workers Union is protesting a recent pro-
posal of the South Carolina State Labour
Commissioner to put in secret codes infor-
mation showing how much workers have
been exposed to chemical hazards.

Information on exposure to chemical
hazards would be written in secret codes in

TAN

What piddling little gripe has the Safety Committee got
for us today?

records given to workers by their employers
in South Carolina according to a recent
proposal by the State Labor Commissioner.

ACTWU representatives Local 254T Bus.
Agent Archie Campbell and Safety and
Health instructor Paul Restivo protested the
state’s proposal in testimony before the
State Labor Commissioner.

ACTWU has filed a formal challenge to
the proposed rules, and will take every
possible legal step to block their going into
effect, ACTWU Safety and Health Dir. Eric
Frumin said.

The state says the codes are necessary to
protect “trade secrets.” Workers would not
be able to read their own records, and would
have to have the code interpreted by a
company official.

Federal law requires employers to keep
accurate health and safety records for each
worker including hazardous chemicals they
have been exposed to in the course of their
employment. Federal OSHA guarantees
workers or others they designate the right to
copies of their records.

Frumin said the state proposal violates
the intent of a recent Federal Safety and
Health standard which stipulates “direct”
access by workers to their records.

In a further proposed restriction, only a
lawyer, doctor, dentist or union representa-
tive could be named by a worker to see the
medical records. Under the Federal statute,
workers can name “anyone” to assist in
interpreting or obtaining their medical
records. A worker in a non-union plant
might have to pay a doctor or lawyer to help
or advise, Frumin said, putting a financial
barrier between workers and their medical
records.

®
LABOUR BRIEFS

NDP Finance critic Bob Rae has said that
the Prime Minister and the Finance Minis-
ter have drafted “an army of unemployed”
to fight their war against inflation.

Noting the increasing number of unem-
ployed, the Broadview-Greenwood MP
asked Finance Minister Allan MacHachen
if it was fair to continue “drafting” people
into this “army”.

Rae was responding to the Statistics
Canada announcement that in 1980 Can-
ada had the highest annual increase in
inflation since 1975.

The government will spend the same
amount of money on advertising to convince
Canadians that in Liberal hands “the
universe is unfolding as it should” as it will
to help the 200,000 people laid off last year
because of Liberal policies.

NDP Employment and Immigration critic
David Orlikow says he expected that a
government that has watched layoffs occur
have had time to establish a policy to deal
with Canada’s industrial decline.

Instead, a small amount of money — the
same as for the government advertising
campaign — will go to designated communi-
ties for “labour adjustment”.

12/Lumber Worker/February/March, 1981