shut down operations and walk awé
from workers. ee
Miller said B.C. should be in the
forefront in creating value added jobs"
and extensive silviculture projects.

MB rally

e NDP trade critic Dave Barrett told a community college audience that a North

American free trade agreement would mean more job losses for Canadians.

Barrett warns against
Mexican trade deal

DUNCAN, B.C. — One of the coun-
try’s leading opponents of the upcom-
ing North American Free Trade talks,
Federal NDP Trade Critic Dave Bar-
rett, said that such a deal would mean
the loss of Canada’s need to develop
secondary and tertiary industries.

At an address to an audience at
Malaspina College here on March 8th,
Barrett warned of the upcoming
North American Free Trade Agree-
ment (NAFTA) between the United
States, Mexico and Canada.

The New Democratic Party, accord-
ing to Barrett, is the only Party
opposed to the NAFTA, as the Lib-
eral Party has all but muted its
opposition.

According to Barrett, the NDP
raised a rucus in the House of Com-
mons in early September of 1990 when
the talks were announced. In reac-
tion, Federal Minister of Trade John
Crosbie announced that a series of
parliamentary hearings in Ottawa
would help determine whether or not
Canada would join such talks.

A few hearings were held in Ottawa
and, one day after those hearings
ended, Crosbie announced that Can-
ada would join.in a NAFTA.

Barrett said that Prime Minister
Brian Mulroney, in a meeting with
Mexican President Carlos Salinas de
Gortari, told the Mexican that over
180,000 jobs were created in Canada
since the signing of the Canada-U.S.
FTA.

When Barrett asked Crosbie to pro-
duce proof of those jobs to a House of
Commons committee, Crosbie refused
saying he didn’t want to get into the
“numbers game.” Crosbie couldn’t
name one job that Mulroney said had
been created.

“The government of Canada is
playing a game of deceit with the
Canadian public about free trade
agreements and at stake is no less
than our country’s sovereignty,” said
Barrett.

At present Barrett said industrial
sectors in Canada and the US. are
into debating subsidies under the
FTA. Barrett said that some indus-
tries are identifying health insurance
and Canada’s medicare system as
unfair subsidies to Canadian industry.

According to Barrett these subsidy
negotiations will amount to a further

assault on Canadian social programs.

“Underlying the job loss is the
threat to social programs,” said Bar-

rett. “Under the FTA, it will be even-
tually deemed unfair for Canadians to
have universal pre-paid health care.”

Barrett said that Canadians will
see a further assault on their sover-
eignty and loss of jobs if NAFTA
becomes a reality.

He said Canada is already losing
jobs to Mexico in the car parts and
component assembly sectors. The
Maquiladora Free Trade Zone in
northern Mexico along the U.S. bor-
der, operates in areas where labour
standards do not protect workers and
environmental regulations are not
enforced.

Barrett says the Maquiladora has
modern high technology orientated
jobs where many of the skills and
talents are well developed.

The speaker said that at no time
during the consideration of talks ona
NAFTA have any of the respective
governments talked about workers’
rights or environmental protection.
Barrett said the exploitation of work-
ers and the environment will be seen
as comparative advantages for Mex-
ico ina NAFTA.

Barrett said that the American
opposition to the NAFTA, through
the A.F.L.- C.1.0., is coming to life in
the “automobile” and border states.

The speaker said that those who
support the deal are those who
expound the virtues “maximization
of profit no matter what country it
takes place in.”

In an interview with the Lumber-
worker, Barrett said a value-added
woods products industry will be more
difficult to create as Canadian re-
sources will be shipped out of the
country at an increasing rate.

He said that the “IWA is one of the
most progressive unions around and
its position on value-added must have
a sovereign base.”

Barrett says that Canada must
scrap the existing FTA with the U.S.
after the next election and protect
sovereignty over its resources to main-
tain secondary and tertiary industry
in this country.

“We (Canadians) are a lucky peo-
ple,” Barrett told the audience.
“Canadians have been engaged in a
cornucopia of resources, somewhat
selfishly, for over 100 years.”

However Barrett says that Canadi-
ans are losing control over that
resource base which is finite.

Continued from page one

Estimates are that over 2,000 addi-
tional jobs in the Valley will be lost as
local communities get hit by the MB
cuts.

IWA Local 1-85 first vice-president,
Dave Haggard said the industry is
weakening the union and other work-
ers in the province and that govern-
ment has to pay attention.

He said “ ie next government has
got to get the message that working
people are the backbone of this prov-
ince and we have to have somebody
who gives a damn about where we're
going to end up.”

National fourth vice-president,
Roger Stanyer said the Socred gov-
ernment has watched the forest indus-
try decimate many communities and
“hasn’t lifted a finger to help one
single working person.”

He said the government is paying
no attention to what’s happening to
forest industry jobs and doing noth-
ing to create work with better fibre
utilization.

Earl Foxcroft, president of Local
1-85, told the protesters that the union
has had dozens of meetings with gov-
ernment and company officials over
the past 8 months to save Alply and
has tried to “work within the system.”

“The problem is that we can’t find
the system that they are talking
about.”

Foxcroft said the company and the
government have a responsibility to
provide jobs, especially on public for-
est lands.

Foxcroft said the IWA is being
decimated. He said in the recession of
the early 80’s the union lost over
19,000 members and the present reces-
sion has put 11,000 out of work.

Opposition NDP Forest Critic, Dan
Miller, said that during the last 3%
years the Socreds have secretly been
changing requirements that allow
holders of public tenure, like MB, to

“We're the worst province in Can-
ada when it comes to crea' jobs —
from our forest resource,” said Miller.

Alply plant chairman, Dave Stein-
hauer said that MB must realize that
if it wants union support in holding
on to its Tree Farm License (TFL),
that it must, at the least, create
replacement jobs for workers.

The union joined Reser officials
in the formation of several commit-
tees to search for alternative strate-
gies of employment after MB an-
nounced that Alply would close. For
several months union members worked
hard to save jobs.

But in the final analysis, MB hasn't
created one replacement job. Brother
Steinhauer says that MB's participa-
tion on the job strategy committees
was all “smoke and mirrors.”

“They (MB) better never ask us for
support again in helping them to hold
on to their TFL,” Steinhauer told the
Lumberworker.

In May of '89, June of 1990, and
November of last year, [WA - CANADA
members in MB operations and other
companies attended rallies in support
of job preservation in tree farm
licenses. MacMillan Bloedel was a
major supports of the IWA initiatives.

‘ut in the final analysis the largest
threat to [WA jobs has not been from
those groups attacking the forest land
base, but from MB itself. -

Dave Thien an official with CPU
Local 592 at MB’s pulp and paper mill
in Port Alberni says his members
were threatened with suspension for
attending the rally.

_ Union members at MB operations
in Courtenay Local 1-863 were also
threatened with suspensions.

Other speakers at the rally included
Port Alberni - NDP MLA Gerard
Janssen and Stan Shewaga, president
of the PPWC which has certifications
at MB’s Harmac Pulp Mill and Thun-
derbird Sawmill in Nanaimo where
the company has been talking addi-
tional job losses.

¢ IWA-CANADA President Jack Munro at Wage and Contract conference.

Pensions top list

Continued from page one

BENEFIT INCREASES — increases
in Group Life Insurance and Acciden-
tal Death and Dismemberment Cover-

age.

LONG TERM DISABILITY — im-
provement needed to current benefit
levels.

APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING —
companies should indenture appren-
tices to fill future vacancies that will
be created by attribution.

FOREST ENVIRONMENT COMM-
ITTEES — negotiators will demand
that such committees are set up in all
operations.
NON-INTERFERENCE DURING
ORGANIZING — negotiators will

demand that companies will not inter-
fere with union drives in any of their
other operations.

The Negotiating Committee will
also see some additional separate pro-

’ visions for the Coast, Northern and

Southern Interior regions.

On the coast the Union will demand
full round trip payment of air fares,
the inclusion of bussing agreements,
into the Master Agreement and the
ancl of Water travel as travelling

ime.

_ In the Northern and Southern Inte-

riors the Union will demand that a
section on hiring preference be in-
cluded into the agreements in the
events of long term layoffs.
__ The interior locals will also be seek-
ing health and welfare coverage for a
full year, regardless of whether or not
a worker is on WC.B. prior to collect-
ing the coverage.

a a

2/LUMBERWORKER/MAY, 1991