PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Realizing the importance
of our political actions

by Jack Munro

HERE are over one-and-a-half million
Canadians for whom full-time work is
a fond hope rather than a fact of life.
Woodworkers know that better than
most. We have seen far too many plant
closures and production curtailments. We've
also seen plant relocations to the U.S. — allof
which have cost us jobs, thousands of jobs.

We have a federal government that can’t
find its way out of the economic mess it has
created. They drafted and signed a free trade
agreement with the U.S., but didn’t have the
courage to tell Canadians what some of the
unwritten provisions of that agreement were.

Asa result, we have a dollar that is closer to
par than it is to reality. To achieve the prom-
ised level playing field, the federal govern-
ment has systematically started the economic
dominoes falling in this country.

They jacked-up interest rates in Canada far
above those in the U.S. That pushed our
dollar up, all but shut down our export indus-
tries, and created a virtual stampede of busi-
nesses and consumers to the U.S.

At home our made-in-Canada recession has
ballooned our federal deficit — by most esti-
mates, it is $10 billion higher because of their
interest rate policy and concessions to the
United States.

For the right wing in this country, the
deficit has become their excuse to achieve
through the back door what they could never
achieve in a legitimate election, the disman-

tlement of this coun-
try’s great achieve-
ments in social pro-
grams. :

What does all this
mean to the IWA as an
organization and as a
force for progressive
change in this coun-
try?

I think one of the
things it means is that
what we have done so
well in the past —
being an active, hard
working, well recog-
nized political organi-
zation — is something
we will have to do
more of in the future.

But realty is never |
a simple thing. Ask
Bob Ree He'll tell
that there is a fair dis-
tance between what
his government wants
to do and what it can
do.

So we know that we
will have to some-
times fight for our
hard earned rights,
even with our friends
in the NDP. That's
been a part of our his-_
tory and it will con-
tinue to be a part of
our future.

But politics are not
just about election
campaigns, politics

And when I say politi-
cal I mean it in the largest and truest sense of
the word.

In my mind, being political explains why
we make no secret of our support for the NDP
We've had our debate internally and we said
that negotiating a good collective agreement
doesn’t mean much if the government of the
day, whether it’s provincial or federal, is doing
their damnedest to undermine everything
that the agreement is trying to achieve. So as
a union we've said let’s get out there and make
sure that the people who run for office have
policies and programs which make sense to
our members.

The NDP has been and continues to be the
only party in this country that embraces in
their policies and their programs a view that
fits with what trade unions have been trying
to achieve for the last one-hundred years.
Safe, secure and sustainable employment in
an economy where the power of government is
used in a meaningful way to achieve the
democracy that average Canadians so
urgently need.

are also about dealing with bureaucrats and
cabinet ministers and premiers and prime
ministers during their term in office.

Whether it’s telling a finance minister that
the softwood lumber agreement makes no
sense at all; or telling a provincial forest
minister that the rules on log exports are too
soft; or telling a senior government bureau-
crat that they have to listen to labour's voice
more often before programs and policies are
developed; or — God help us — adding our
voice of approval when the government does
something right.

Each one of these actions is political and
each one of those actions is an essential part
of doing the job of representing our members.
Yes, it would be easy when dealing with
right-wing governments to say, “They're not
my party, they’re not my government, so I’m
not going to talk to them.”. But that isn’t
serving the membership — that’s only serv-
ing some elite view that says do what's politi-
cally correct, not what’s right.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

We should cooperate to
end land-use confrontation

by Claire Dansereau

HE “South Island Accord”, the “West/
Kootenay Accord” and the ‘Peace in the
Woods Committee” are three initiatives
taken by this union in the past month to
try and reduce some of the animosity in
the forests.

The South Island Accord, initiated by Duncan
Local 1-80, was hailed by all as a good first step.
The primary purpose of the process which led to
the signing of the Accord was to find out what, if
any, common ground exists between that Local
and established environmental groups. A second-
ary purpose was to get to know each other so that,
in future, confrontation could be minimized. The
purpose was not to discuss the Walbran or any
other contentious area.

Both sides learned a lot in the process. The
IWA-CANADA forest policy was used by Local 1-80
to guide its input and the environmental groups
understood that it is impossible for us to talk
about setting areas aside or to support moratoria
without talking about job creation strategies in
the forest industry at the same time.

The Accord clearly spells out that for us to
support setting an area aside we first need to
know if the area is needed for environmental
reasons and secondly that jobs in the forest
industry will be created at the same time Without
these two pieces of information it is impossible for
us to support setting areas aside and the environ-
mental groups now understand this. They also
know that we are clearly in favour of sustainable
forestry that will ensure perpetually healthy
forests.

The protestors did not immediately leave the
Walbran Valley. However, they did a few weeks
later. They unfortunately subsequently returned
and contonued to harass our workers. The
Carmanah Forestry Society, the only group among
all the signatories to do so, returned to their
blockade almost immediately after the NDP win

at the provincial polls.
No other environmental
group participated in
the road block.

The blockade has since
been removed as the
Carmanah Forestry So-
ciety has agreed that
\] peaceful cooperation is
more likely to produce
the desired results. In a
press release on Friday
November 1, they agreed
to allow the NDP gov-
ernment to resolve the

issues.

In the South Island Accord we were able to
agree that the logging systems which we use must
be suited to the ecosystem within which they take
place. We agreed that all log and cant exports
should be stopped and that B.C. needs a legislated
Forest Practices Act. Community stability must

be a central component

arrangement was to agree to find ways in which
provincial Accords could be written. It is an
acknowledgement by all parties that we have to
find common ground. It is an acknowledgement
by us that the forest-environment needs to be
protected — something that we have always said
— and an acknowledgement by the environmental
groups that jobs cannot be discussed at some
later date. They must be discussed right now.

These Accords are important to IWA-CANADA.
We have argued for many years that new options
must be found. It is frustrating for us to con-
stantly sit at government or community initiated
meetings whose sole purpose is to discuss the
logging vs. no-logging side of the debate.

We know that other options exist. We know that
new logging systems and new decision-making
processes could prevent a lot of the problems that
we face.

We know all this very well because so many of
our members sit at planning tables and do make a
difference. We are very active on many Local
Resource Use Planning

to forestry decisions and
the planning processes
need to be opened up to
allow greater participa-
tion by concerned groups
including IWA-CANADA.

The Accord which

New decision making
processes could prevent
a lot of problems we face

Teams where alternative
logging systems are an
important topic of dis-
cussion.

There will be no reso-
lution of land-use con-
flicts unless we can have

was signed is only a first
step. All parties agreed that we have to continue
to meet so that future confrontations can be
avoided.

Local 1-405 signed their own version of the
South Island Accord. We all know that this Local
Union has had its share of protests and demon-
strations. Many people have recently been
arrested for trying to prevent logging in their local
watershed. The community is severely split on the
log vs. no-log debate and it is hoped that the
Accord will show that there are other alternatives.
_ Confrontations are on the increase everywhere
in the country and finding peaceful means to
co-exist becomes more important every day. Com-
munities are being divided and neighbours are
fighting neighbours. This should not be happen-
ing. There are enough issues upon which we can
agree to allow us to find ways to keep talking to
each other. .

_At the provincial level, Brother Jack Munro
signed the Peace in the Woods Committee Agree-

ment on October 10, 1991. The purpose of this

as wide a variety of
interests as possible sit down together to discuss
new systems and new options.

The Accords, the B.C. Forest Alliance, the B.C.
Resources Commission, the Ontario Sustainable
Forestry Panel are all means by which we can
achieve this goal. Each endeavour is unique and
designed for its own purpose. Each one is long-
term and our hope when we participate in these is
to continually remind people that simple solu-
tions, such as all logging or no-logging — to
complex problems do not work. We must be
creative and we must be forceful in our demands.

Important first steps have been taken in this
past year by many people within this Union and
we must continue working together to make sure
that our Forest Policy is at the forefront of all
forestry debates.

Claire Dansereau is IWA-CANADAs
Forest and Environment Planner.

-

nn al

4/LUMBERWORKER/NOVEMBER, 1991