The economic recession has hit
nation wide from east to west and
from north to south. Three IWA
-CANADA locals which have seen the
effects in similar ways are local 1-184
in Saskatchewan, local 1-2995 in
Kapuskasing, northern Ontario and
local 1-500 in Hanover, Ontario.

Saskatchewan president Dennis
Bonville says his local’s membership
hit a low of about 550 dues payers in

August, down to less than half of the
normal number.

Government statistics recently
released revealed that in the first 10
months of this year, over 19,000 peo-
ple left the province in a massive
exodus from economic hardships.

The permanent closure of the Simp-
son Timber company sawmill in June
caused the loss of 165 union jobs in
addition to the loss of over 400 log-
ging jobs in and around Hudson Bay.

© Over 1,000 woodworkers and community supporters gathered outside Nanaimo

courthouse Nov. 5, to hear speakers express
logging in lower Tsitika Valley.

Land claims

Continued from page 1

Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of
Vancouver Island.

The evidence has been the basis of
the tribal council’s current land claim
in the courts which has prevented
logging activity on the island.

At press time logging is expected
to continue in the lower Tsitika until

frustrations over native court case to stop

around mid-December. MB has suc-
cessfully sought an injunction ban-
ning protesters from interfering in
logging operations.

Before work in mid-November, fall-
ers found about 1.6 km. of heavy
gauge fishing line strung around
trees. The fishing line posed a safety
hazard for the fallers as it was strung
around neck and ankle levels. While
falling, bucking, or seeking escape
routes, a faller could be struck by the
line.

Unemployment

Continued from page 1

The regional breakdown of the [WA
survey reveals a higher unemploy-
ment rate in central and eastern Can-
ada locals than is the case for locals in
western Canada. For example, the
October and November surveys
recorded unemployment rates in the
east of 16.6% and 20.8% respectively.
Comparable figures for western Can-
ada locals for the two survey months
were 15.9% and 17.1%.

To some extent the national and
regional figures understate the hard-
ship and dislocation that have beset
some sectors of the wood products
industry. In British Columbia, for
example, the coast plywood industry
has experienced a substantial drop in
employment over the last three
months. During the November survey
week, 39.7% of the IWA’s BC. coast
plywood membership was without
work. That figure was up slightly
from the 39.1% recorded during the
October survey week.

Sawmill workers faced similarly
tough conditions in October and
November. The survey shows that in
the largest producing region, British
Columbia, unemployment amongst
sawmill workers climbed from 18.9%
in October to 20.3% in November. The
hardest hit region forsawmillers con-
tinued to be the B.C. coast where
unemployment rose from 21.0% in
October to 26.2% in November.

In every region and every local the
reasons for the rising tide of unem-
ployment remain the same; high inter-
est rates and an over-valued Canadian
dollar. Despite the recent decline of

interest rates in Canada, the federal
government through its lead agency,
the Bank of Canada, continues to
hold Canadian interest rates well
above comparable U.S. rates. This
artificial premium in Canadian rates
has been as much as 5 full percentage
points above those in the U.S., well
above the 1-2 percentage point differ-
ence that has been typical of Canada-
USS. rates for most of the 1980's.

As long as the Bank of Canada
maintains this wide difference in inter-
est rates, it artificially inflates our
dollar. Since January, 1987 the Cana-
dian dollar has risen from $.72 U.S. to
approximately $.86 U.S. currently.
Most analysts agree that given the
condition of the Canadian economy
and our growing trade deficit, the
Canadian dollar cannot be sustained
at its current level.

Inaseries of letters to Prime Minis-
ter Brian Mulroney, Finance Minister
Michael Wilson and Bank of Canada
Governor John Crow, IWA-CANADA
president Jack Munro blasted the fed-
eral government's current economic
policies, especially those affecting the
dollar and interest rates.

“Current federal economic policies
are totally unwarranted and short-
sighted,” said Munro.

Under Tory economics, Munro
added, workers, particularly those in
export industries like wood products,
become shock-absorbers in a system
where the reward for being responsi-
ble and efficient, as we have been in
our industry, is more unemployment.

“That system has got to change
and if it takes a new government to do
it, so much the better,” added Munro.

— Phillip Legg
Assistant Research Director

Since the closure about half the
millworkers and their families have
left Hudson Bay.

At the Saskfor plant in town, short-
ages of good peeler logs and markets
for plywood have created layoffs and
reduced shifts while at the MacMillan
Bloedel’s Aspenite plant, a three day
work week has been routine since a
reopening of the facility in September
following plant wide layoffs which
began in June.

“We're right next to Newfoundland
as far as high unemployment and
escalating costs of living goes,” says
Bonville.

In the local’s western certifications,
25 workers at the Green Lake Wood
Enterprises sawmill have received
layoff notices while an entire shift at
the Meadow Lake sawmill, 150 miles
west of Prince Albert have been laid
off.

In local 1-500, president Bruce
Weber says the union is trying to hold
its own.

Many plants are on a work sharing
basis, which hides the unemployment
and underemployment rates. Workers
at Sklar Pepplar furniture and Hano-
ver Kitchens in Hanover are on shared
work weeks. For the first time the
workforce at Sklar has dropped below
200.

But Weber says the majority of the
employers have said they are going to
try and tough out the recession and
resist plant closures.

Three recent certifications have

Local Unions experience depressing times |

added 150 members to the local
union’s membership rates.

In northern Ontario, local 1-2995
saw its membership dip to about 1,000
workers in September from a normal
average of about 2,300.

Union president Norman Rivard
says the local has been hit in all
directions with layoffs. Since Septem-
ber, most mills have gone back to
work on a one or two shift basis, while
some have remained down indefinitely.

Normick Perron’s plywood plant in
Cochrane is operating only on one
shift while two stud mills owned by
James McLaren, in Cochrane and in
Kirkland Lake are down indefinitely.

Rivard says that since the Memo-

randum of Understanding between
the U.S. and Canada put a 15% export
tariff on Canadian lumber in 1986,
markets for forest products out of
northern Ontario have diminished
greatly.
Since the bottom fell out of the
Canadian housing market, says
Rivard, most mills haven't been able
to move inventory. Some mills sell
hes 80% of their production domestic-
ally.

“We're madder than hell at the
Mulroney government for its high
interest rates policy and supporting
an over-valued Canadian dollar,” says
Rivard.

IWA locals all over Canada are
hurting for those very reasons. And
there's no telling how long this “made
in Canada” recession is going to last.

UTI. law passes Senate

After holding up Bill C-21, the
Unemployment Insurance Reform
Act for more than 10 months, the
Senate has passed the controversial
legislation. On October 22, the Tory
stacked Senate passed, by amargin of
53-40, new laws which will make it
tougher for workers to collect benefits.

The bill cuts $3 billion in govern-
ment contributions to the national
insurance program and makes the
fund operational only through increa-
ses in premiums from workers in their
employ.

New variable entrance requirements
change the goal posts as far as quali-
fying for benefits goes. Instead of
having to work for 10-14 weeks, work-
ers will now have to put in between 10
and 20 weeks to collect benefits. In
most cases duration of benefits will be
cut by 50%.

For seasonal workers such as log-
gers in rural areas, there is the chance
of being arbitrarily lumped into urban
areas which are classified as having
lower unemployment rates. Areas des-
ignated as having lower unemploy-
ment rates will have longer qualifica-
tion periods and benefits of shorter
duration.

One of the bills’ major changes will
be the funelling of some $800 million
into “training programs”. Even

though the bill is now law, such pro-
grams have not been determined by
the feds.

The Tory government’s new found
labour market policy now states that
the employer has no responsibility for
worker retraining and the costs are
passed on to workers.

Workers can also expect longer
delays at Canada Employment and
Immigration as staff levels, nation-
wide have been cut by nearly 10% in
recent years.

Joy McPhail, spokesperson for the
B.C. Federation of Labour, says 16,000
British Columbians will be cut com-
pletely out of the system and that
over 90,000 workers will see their
benefits drop. Average UI entitlement
will drop by 5 1/2 weeks nationwide.

For IWA-CANADA members, who
are laid off and hoping to survive the
recession, this can only be more bad
news.

Workers who quit their jobs with-
out “just cause” will see disqualifica-
tion penalty periods jump from 2-6
weeks to 7-12 weeks. There will also
be a reduction in payments for those
who “quit” work.

Earlier this year, the Canadian Lab-
our Congress estimated that 130,000
Canadians would become ineligible
for UIC benefits.

Mexico

Continued from page 1

process,” wrote Munro. “Many of our
members, in the furniture industry
and elsewhere, are the direct victims
of that betrayal ... No Canadian
worker can trust your government
with any further so-called “Free
Trade” Agreements,“ wrote Munro.

In the message the union president
made special mention of the export of
redwood logs from California to Mex-
ico and the victimization of workers in
higher wage areas.

Munro drew a parallel to the trade
deal with Canada and the U.S.: “We
have members who can virtually see
plants that have moved across the
US. border, taking Canadian jobs
with them. They have not much else
to do as they are standing in UIC.
lines.”

Delegates to the national conven-
tion, held in Vancouver, B.C. between
September 24 - 27, unanimously
endorsed the telegram to Crosbie.

During the week of the convention,
US. President George Bush notified
Congress that his government would
be seeking a trade deal with Mexico
and that Canada has expressed inter-
est. The chairmen of the Senate finan-
ce committee and the House of Repre-
sentatives committee on way and
means will likely grant negotiating
auton ty for Bush sometime in May
of 1991.

Between now and next May, the
Mulroney government will be under
seige from big business groups in
Canada to join the talks.

— See pages 4,8

ER I

2/LUMBERWORKER/NOVEMBER, 1990

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