Se 1S GN . THE TWA . | dent Wilf McIntyre (r.). © Holding the picket line in Thunder Bay are strikers Larry Duhaime (I.) and Roland Frayne along with Local 1-2693 first vice-presi- Tugboat engineers’ strike continues THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO — Since April 24, 1989,IWA-CANADA Local 1-2693 has been on strike against Gravel and Lake Services Ltd. at this city’s harbour on Lake Superior. At issue are wages and working condi- tions of four tugboat engineers and deckhands, two of whom remain on picket duty. The workers have spent over 2 years trying to get an agreement from their employer who demanded wage con- cessions of $4/hour and benefit roll- backs of about 75 cents per hour. At the heart of the issue was work- ing conditions for the union members. In 1986 the company was pur- chased from Oscar Styffe Ltd., a well respected local family operation which ceased woods operations in the 1960s when they yielded all their tim- ber rights back to the Crown. The Styffe family had operated a small logging sawmill and tugboat opera- tion since the turn of the century on Lake Superior. The only portion of the business that the Styffe family maintained was their tugboat operations. The new owner, Paul Lecuyer, sought to shift the engineers to work out in logging operations to keep the workers away from the docks. Local president Fred Miron says Lecuyer simply wanted the agreement to get across to a major pulp and paper company’s timber limits already covered under collective agreements. “The company tried to use a woods agreement to introduce cut throat bid contractors to undermine the stan- dards that we have established in the bush,” says Brother Miron. The local union has been actively supported by the Thunder Bay and District Labour Council, whose 25 affiliate unions have joined in. The labour council has offered per- sonal, financial and moral support. In addition, other IWA members have given strong support to manning the 24 hour, 7 day a week picket line. Strikers Roland Frayne and Larry Duhaime remain dead set and deter- mined to bring their employer back to the table. The tugboats, which service ocean going vessels and other ships near the Thunder Bay dock, have been idled during the strike. The tug’s captains, members of Officer's Guild, have a clause in their collective agreement which protects them from crossing another union’s picket line. The Ontario Labour Relations Board has yet to rule on the union’s agreement with Gravel and Lake. Union officials are optimistic they will receive a ruling to indicate that Lecuyer’s company has no status in woodlands operations. _ |Lengthy lockout ends HEARST, ONTARIO — Aiter2 years @ of being locked out by a stubborn employer, more than twenty IWA -CANADA members are anxious to get. back to work. Former employees of Mike’s Food Store are expecting to go back to work in May under a collective agree- ment which has settled the major concerns during the lockout which began in December of 1987. Mike's Food Store, operated by Vern Brown, a steadfastly anti-union employer, never reopened and had its lease purchased by the shopping mall owner known legally as ‘480-346 Ontario Limited.” “The entire dispute was bad for the community of Hearst,” says Local 1-2995 president Norm Rivard. “In the best business interests of the mall owners, the store has to reopen.” Three issues caused the impasse at negotiations; wages, seniority for part time employees, and the long term disability benefits plan (LTD). In the new agreement which expires at the end of October, 1992, both full and part time union workers will receive an overall wage increase of 11%. New contract language will ensure that senior part time workers will be given the right to work 24 hours per week before junior employ- ees can. Before the strike began the employer was calling in part time employees by preference and not according to length of service. To resolve the LTD issue the new employer has agreed to be solel: responsible for providing a plan ona is able to provide 70% of monthly income up to a maximum of $1600 per month. Other benefits include introduction of a pension plan, and benefit increases for weekly wage indemnity, life insurance, and accidental death and dismemberment. “This lengthy struggle showed that if we stick together and bene together, along with the support of the IWA, we can overcome a lot of hardships,” says Brother Rivard. Log shortages force mill closure SOOKE, B.C. — Lamford Forest Prod- ucts, an employee owned and oper- ated firm has shut down its cedar mill here and gone out of business, caus- ing 150 lost jobs. The Local 1-80 members join 70 workers who lost their jobs during a closure at Sooke’s New Westminster division in late 1989. The New Westminster closure was permanent right from the start. How- ever, efforts to save the Sooke opera- tion were unable to protect the valu- able jobs in the community. A long term shortage of timber supply is the main reason for the closure at Sooke Division. Although local union officials worked hard to get the government to commit a long term supply of timber to operate the mill, efforts proved to be in vain. At one point of negotiations with the provincial government, Doman Industries was interested in a venture to save the operation and possibly turn it into a white wood manufactu- rer. A combination of slumping cedar markets and the rising Canadian dol- lar made efforts to revive the plant a near impossible task. In British Columbia, MacMillan Bloedel controls the cedar markets, producing more than all of its compet- itors combined. Flow of logs into the market is very limited and highly priced. The mill had been on shaky ground since the 1980's recession hit. It for- merly ran as Sooke Forest Products until it went bust in 1985. The workers helped to get the mill on its feet again through a rescue program, coordinat- ed by a provincial commissioner for critical industries. The employee owned operation has voted to auction off the mill’s equip- ment and sell the real estate it sits on. The New Westminster mill’s equip- ment was sold off earlier this year and a land sale deal is in the works. John Reibin (I.) and Merv McCullagh discuss closure of mill with Local 1-80 business agent Rod Thomson. 16/LUMBERWORKER/MAY, 1990