GUEST COLUMN

Control of forests
in too few hands

by Dan Miller

MASSIVE and almost invisible trans-

formation is taking place in B.C.’s forest

\ industry affecting thousands of employ-

_\ees, the forest management policies of
\the provincial government and where the

profits go from the use of our public
timber resource.

This transformation has taken the form of
increasing corporate concentration. Over the past
decade, it has meant that fewer and fewer compa-
nies hold a larger and larger portion of the rights
to cut publicly-owned timber in this province.

Three years ago a thesis written at the
University of Victoria confirmed what many peo-
ple had suspected. At that time the five largest
corporate groups in the province owned 68% of the
provincial allowable cut in TSAs and 82% of the
cut in TFLs. Only ten years earlier the largest four
corporate groups had held 27% of the TSA cut.
Since that thesis was written, the arrival of
Fletcher Challenge Canada and other corporate
moves have only increased the level of concentra-
tion.

The effects of this increasing concentration are
clear, and over the past decade they have only
been made worse by the alliance formed between
large forest companies and a friendly provincial

government — a government that has never
demanded adequate levels of investment and
employment as a price of doing business in our
province. Forest industry workers were the first to
feel the effects, and they are feeling them still.

Let’s look at some hard statistics for the 10-year
period from 1979 to 1988: |

(a) forest companies cut 10.5 million more cubic |
metres of logs; |

(b) the value of all forest products increased by
$4 billion;

(c) lumber production increased by 6.5 billion
board feet;
ne) 22,500 forest industry workers lost their
jobs.

There’s no doubt that world economic condi-
tions have to take their share of blame for layoffs
in the early 1980s, but since then the impact of
corporate concentration and integration of forest
companies have had a much greater effect.

Having relatively few large-scale companies
doing everything from logging to marketing their
products has meant that these corporations can
produce whatever will make the most profit for

them in the short term,
wherever and however is
the cheapest way to do
it.

The management of
TFL #46 is a good ex-
ample. The owners cut
as much high quality,
cheaply available timber
as possible when the
price was high, and
reduced production and
employment when tim-
ber ran out, rather than
operating at a harvest level that would sustain
their yield as well as the jobs of their workers.

On the manufacturing side, the production of
dimension lumber and, lately, pulp using the most
highly automated means possible, is another
direct result of the increasing concentration of the
industry. In both of these cases, it’s clear that for

pane bas aes) Caan | bereits: on the
igher profits available Ip production
have led to cancellation of intensive silviculture
programs that could have provided steady
“whose days in BLC., the publ the govern

ese days in B.C., the public an -
ment are forced to rely on indu: for such basic
information as inventory levels. en Fletcher
Challenge Canada was applying for a Tree Farm
Licence near Mackenzie in 1988, it was the com-
pany, not the forest service that offered to inven-
tory the timber involved — after the TFL was
awarded, of course.

Finally, the domination of our forest industry
by large corporations, most of which have their
head offices in the east or in another country,
diverts money away from local workers, busi-
nesses and communities.

Corporate managers in eastern Canada or off-
shore do not necessarily make decisions that are in
the best interest of B.C. workers and communities.

the corporations it’s bet-
ter to lose jobs than
profits.

The provincial gov-
ernment has stood by
while thousands of for-
est industry jobs have
been lost. They have
accepted the corpora-
tions’ explanation that

The tenure system must
be reviewed to see if we
are getting maximum

mmvestment and
job creation

It has been shown that
companies with head
offices outside Canada
do not spend very much
money on research and
development, and re-
search and development
creates more jobs. They
can move their profits
back and forth within

it was all in the name of
good business practices. A more subtle change
has been happening at the same time — as the
forest corporations have grown in size and power,
they have managed to take over management
responsibilities for our forests.

In 1983, COFI submitted a brief to the provin-
cial government that included four forest policy
recommendations. Three of those four recommen-
dations have now been implemented. They are: a
decentralized, smaller Ministry of Forests, dele-
gation of management responsibilities to
licencees, and privatized log scaling, timber cruis-
ing and forest nursery programs.

What has been the result of allowing the forest

| giants to “tend their own fields”? One example

can be found in the audit of MacMillan Bloedel’s
TFL #39, which found the company had left more
than twice the allowable waste behind after
logging.

The report also found that two other TF Ls in
the same area had left similar levels of waste
behind after logging, and that staff shortages in
the Ministry of Forests office made it impossible
to accurately check waste figures submitted by
licencees, or increase on site inspections.

A report on TFL #46 makes the same point.
“District monitoring of waste seems to have relied
almost entirely on the company submissions with-
out any significant level of field checking of work
to verify accuracy, completeness or adherence to
plans.”

Waste is only one example of how corporations
have managed to take over the management of our

their corporation and
spend them on whichever project needs funds —
often on the other side of the country or the world.

The profits from the forests of B.C. may well end
up being used for a takeover in Brazil or a mill in
New Guinea, rather than a silviculture project in
Kamloops.

The combination of increasing corporate con-
centration and a ‘free enterprize’ provincial gov-
ernment has left us with a series of problems in the
forest industry, ranging from poor logging prac-
tices to pulp mill pollution violations.

It’s clear that we have to take a hard second
look at the forest management and economic
policy decisions that have been made to get us in
this position.

The tenure system, which has worked to the
advantage of the large integrated companies,
must be reviewed to see if we are getting the
maximum obtainable in investment and job
creation.

The time is right to regain control of our timber
resources and to use them wisely for the benefit of
all British Columbians.

Dan Miller is the Forestry Critic for the New
Democratic Party of British Columbia. He is a
member of the provincial legislature (North Coast)
and is a millwright who is on leave of absence from
Skeena Cellulose’s pulp mill in Prince Rupert. Mr.
Miller has agreed to provide the Lumberworker
with a series of articles related to the forest indus-
try in BC.

Winter School °90

© More than 60 [WA-CANADA members from Western Canada were in attendance at this
year's B.C. Federation of Labour-CLC Winter School in Harrison, B.C. Below are Local
1-357’s Bruce Barkley (1) and instructor Joe LeClair presenting course certificates to
Bharbara Klassen (1) of CUPE Local 523 and Peggy Hoffman of the Alberta Union of
Public Employees. Above right: ['WA-CANA DA's Education Director Frank Wall (second
from left) joins a rehearsal for the traditional choir contest, and below, IWA's Legal
Counsel Suzan Beattie co-instructs a course in labour law.

16/LUMBERWORKER/MARCH, 1990