PRESIDENT’S MESSAG Politicians only pay lip service to unemployed by Jack Munro _) think it is fair to say that in leadership ) and the economy Canada has more than its fair share of problems. The labour movement has had a lot to say about those problems. In recent years we have been addressing unemployment, under- employment, regional disparities, productiv- ity, international competitiveness, plant clo- sures, and a whole series of social policy and trade issues. k a There are many issues to discuss but there is one that I consider amongst the most pres- sing. The unemployment rate has been back in the 10% range since late 1990. Roughly 1.4 million people are officially described by Sta- tistics Canada as looking for work. That number does not include the underemployed or those who have quit looking for work. When we add all of those up, we find that 2 million people, almost 16% of the labour force, can’t find a decent job. What bugs me most about that problem is while every politician and even a number of business leaders talk about it, they only pay lip service to doing something about it. In essence, unemployed people are used by our leaders like a yo-yo to control workers, wages and inflation. Interest rates are kept high in order to slow down the economy, increase unemploy- ment and force work- ers to moderate their wage demands as a way to control infla- tion. It works in part. With high interest rates and job loss increases, workers be- come more concerned about their job secu- rity than a big wage increase. The price we pay, however, is exorbi- flation in the 1970's and then of high inter- est rates in the early 1980's. For most of the 1980's, the high fed- eral deficit was the main excuse for the government's failure to address the issue of unemployment. It still is used a lot, but it is being replaced by the new slogan of politi- cians and business leaders; it is called competitiveness. Productivity and competitiveness are the new buzz words. tant. Not only in terms of the tens of billion dollars spent every year on U.I., welfare payments and the value of lost production, but also in terms of human suffering, shattered dreams of families, pov- erty, and the indignity of feeling useless, unwanted and having to depend on someone else’s goodwill for food and shelter. Did you know that back in the mid-1960’s when the economic council of Canada was created, one of its targets was the achieve- ment of full employment. When was the last time we heard a finance minister target full employment as a priority of his policies? Sometime during the last twenty years, jobs have stopped being a priority and became en appendage, a consequence of something else. Unemployment became the result of in- Be competitive, workers are told and then we will experience prosperity. Be more productive. Come and tell that to the members of our union in B.C. Over the years, they have become and remain the most competitive and most pro- ductive woodworkers in the world. Yet, B.C. Woodworkers are being laid off and are out of work. Over 20% of our BC. membership is unemployed and a third of those are the victims of permanent plant closures. Governments and employers cannot con- tinue to parade competitiveness as a do or die issue when experience tells so many working Canadians that the benefits, the control and the rewards of that competitiveness just don’t match the pain that it inflicts. Anti-sapstain program not being properly administered by Jim Parker = i ANY workers in sawmills are exposed \; _; daily to pesticides which are designed \ to kill sapstain fungus. Sapstain is a darkening of wood that is caused by \_\ fungus and happens mainly in the wet, sapwood part of lumber. Most green white-wood lumber is treated with anti-stain chemicals. For years the primary chemicals used were chlorophe- nols. These chemicals are extremely toxic and contain trace amounts of chlorinated dioxins and furans. Many years of pressure, primarily by the IWA but also by foreign buyers to ban chlorophenate treated lumber, resulted in the removal of chloro- phenol as an anti-stain pesticide. This change initiated moves to new types of chemicals. One new chemical type was TCMTB. This chemical caused serious problems in terms of chemical burns and allergic sensitization. Copper based chemicals, PQ-8 and NYTEC, were also brought into use. TCMTB, PQ-8 and NYTEC are all now being phased out because it is almost impossible to meet environmental regulations when using these chemicals. The allowable dis- charge levels are from 15 to 200 parts per billion. These chemicals are so toxic to fish that envi- ronmental regulations have forced a search for new alternatives. It must be pointed out that concerns for worker's health, particularly from the serious hazards from TCMTB, had practically no effect in making these changes. It was the regula- tions on environmental discharge, in consider- ation of the health of fish, that got rid of these chemicals that are hurting workers. There are no limits set on how much workers can be exposed. A new set of chemicals are now being intro- duced. The most prevalent are NP-1 produced by a company called Kop-Coat and Timbercote pro- duced by Napier. There is also a chemical called F2 and a Canfor product, Ecobrite. NP-1, Timber- cote and F2 all have the same primary active in- gredient, DDAC, which stands for Didecyl Dime- thyl Ammonium Chloride. This is a chemical that is used as a disinfectant and industrial cleaner. It is irritating to the eyes, skin and on inhalation of mists. The different companies combine the DDAC with other chemicals such as latex sealers, borax or IPBC (another chemical disinfectant). i} ft Due to the concerns for the environment and workers’ health, the B.C. Stakeholder Forum on Sapstain Control was formed. This Forum includes Industry, COFI, IWA, PPWC, CPU, ILWU, Maritime Em- ployers, WCB and the Provincial Government. There is a Sub-Commit- tee for Health Protec- tion and Monitoring Procedures. Sister Verna Ledger, the now retired National Director of Health and Safety for IWA - CANADA, chaired the Sub-Committee. Brother Peter Hayes, Local 1-357 Safety Director, has been appointed to re- The real world situation is a far cry from what is being stated as proper practice for working with anti-stain. Proper practice says: © That if you get any chemical on your skin you should wash it off immediately. © If it gets on your clothing you should change clothing. © Leather should not be used because you can’t get the chemical out. © Work clothes must be washed daily, separate from all other laundry. Inreality I see workers get the chemical on their skin daily. It gets into their clothes and onto their leather workboots. If they washed it off their skin every time they would be washing all day long. I see management dismiss it as not a problem. I see WCB Hygiene Officers shrug their should- ers and say they don’t know what to do, they don’t even have a test for ex- place her. The Health Protection and Monitor- ing Agreement is cer- tainly a good agreement. It calls for: © A central registry of sapstain control pro- ducts and their users. The real world situation is a far cry from proper practice for working with anti-stain posure for DDAC. Well, I don’t think that is good enough. Management can go back to their clean offices, WCB Of- ficers can walk back out the gate, I can even go back to my job in the fil- © For extensive train- ing and education at each operation for each sapstain control. © Health monitoring of workers exposed to anti- stain products. © The development of protective equipment, hygiene practices and engineering controls. Some parties deserve special credit for their part in the agreement. Verna Ledger did an excel- lent job in working to develop it. I’m sure that all other members of the sub-committee did a good job on the agreement as well. It all falls apart though between the committee-room and the workplace. Last year the Vancouver Local of the IWA had a workshop on anti-stain chemicals at which union and management members of the safety committees of each plant using anti-stain chemicals attended. The management people had not even heard of the agreement. COFI was not informing its member companies at all. To date there has not been very much done about the registry of operations using anti-stain. In education and training the bright spot is Kop-Cote. This company, which markets NP-1, does a good job. They ensure that proper proce- dures are in place when a company uses NP-1. The dark side is all the other suppliers which do very little and certainly much less than is required. Napier for instance, which markets Timbercote, does not carry out adequate education. and train- ing. The mills themselves have also been irrespon- sible in many cases. ing room, but the green- chain worker or stacker operator or whoever it is that handles the treated lumberis still there. With the skin irritation, the foul smell, the stinging eyes, the contaminated clothes and workboots and the fear that somewhere down the road some other health problem might appear. The proper adherence to the Health Protection and Monitoring Procedures agreement will help. I now believe even more that all this use of anti- stain chemicals is not necessary. Lumber can be dried instead. A move to more value-added manu- facturing would also facilitate drying and make anti-stain treatment unnecessary. I also believe what may be the best tool for the elimination of this health hazard lies in the second phase of WHMIS. In this phase wood products will require labelling. That means that treated lumber would have to be labelled for the hazard- ous products used in treating. The buyer of the wood would be aware of what is on it and may very well make choices not to use treated wood. It is pitiful that the issue of worker health and safety gets brushed aside while market forces bring change. It’s obvious that the environment, fish and selling products are all treated with much more importance by employers, regulatory agen- cies and the public than the well being of the workers is. Jim Parker is the Safety Director and Execu- tive Board Member of Vancouver Local 1-217. “I RR 4/LUMBERWORKER/AUGUST, 1991