e The U.S. Lumber Coalition’s arguments have not accounted for our mill’s efficient capabilities. Softwood lumber continued from page one Their May 15th ruling found that, on a national average, 2.9% of the 6.5% was required to offset this alleged subsidy. Smyth says that the Commerce Department’s Analysis is based in part, on the selection of the “com- petitive sales section” of the B.C. Small Business Forest Enterprise Program (SBFEP). The Americans are using the “competitive sales sec- tion” as their benchmark against which to measure stumpage. prices for the timber sales from major tenure holders. Small Business sales and other purchased timber only represent the costs of 10-30% of fiber needed in some B.C. sawmills. In all the SBFEP tenure add up to less than 10% of annual sales. “When the Small Business and major tenure wood costs are added together, average delivered wood costs are comparable to what simi- lar U.S. sawmills pay,” says Smyth. “The B.C. system of averaging wood costs is really no different from the practice in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.” For instance, under a standard 3 year public timber sawmills in Oregon and Washington states are able to aver- age uncut lower-cost timber pur- chased earlier with more recent high cost wood acquisitions. Therefore these mills are able to reduce average stumpage costs when harvesting takes place and lumber markets are in a slump. “It is naive to assume that the highest cost stumpage held under contract should arbitrarily be cho- sen to represent the average wood costs in Oregon and Washington,” says Smyth. He says obviously the same can be said for the U.S. Commerce Department’s use of competitive SBFEP stumpage in B.C. as the benchmark for the average cost of wood to the industry. ¢ The longer the pulp mills are down, the worse it will be for many IWA mills that can’t move or store wood chips. Pulp strike continued from page one On June 15th, Weldwood’s Squamish Empire Sawmill in Howe Sound laid off 120 workers as the company was unable to move its chips. IWA-CANADA National Presi- dent Gerry Stoney says that the longer the strike goes, the more impact will be felt by WA mem- bers. He says that the effect will probably be felt equally in both the coast and interior regions, depend- ing on any particular mill’s ability to move or store wood chips from lumber production. Brother Stoney also points out that some sawmills who are mar- ginally profitable because of chip sales, will most likely close down before these making a profit not dependent on chip sales, 2/LUMBERWORKER/JUNE, 1992 The IWA met with the CPU at a strike coordination meeting on June 11th where the IWA was further advised of the strike deadline. Brother Stoney doesn’t expect that the pulp and paper union members will cross-picket IWA operations. B.C. Labour Minister, Moe Sihota met with the parties on the third day of the strike to sound both sides out and express the government’s concern over the shutdowns. Companies that are solely B.C. based such as Canfor and Doman are more likely to want a quick set- tlement then companies like MacMillan Bloedel and Canadian Pacific Forest Products who have integrated operations in central and eastern Canada and can serve their customers when their B.C. opera- tions are down. contract - Roger Stayner takes on position in Forests Ministry IWA-CANADA’s loss is now the B.C, provincial government’s gain, as former National Second Vice President, Roger Stanyer has joined the high ranking bureaucrats of the B.C. Ministry of Forests. On April 21st Brother Stanyer, a well respected IWA-CANADA officer, began work as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Ministry of Forests. Stanyer has been employed by the IWA since 1973 when he was hired on as a Business Agent in Duncan Local 1-80. With his gov- ernment appointment, Stanyer will be able to offer the government par- ticular expertise in logging and forestry. Brother Stanyer’s first assign- ment is to, along with staff of the B.C. Forest Service, conduct a review of the 35 Timber Supply Areas (TSA’s) across the province. The government is getting con- cerned about the inevitable down- sizing that the industry will face in the years ahead as timber supply issues come to the forefront. Part of Stanyer’s job will be to analyze the TSA’s for their timber inventory, species, ages, timber qualities and a whole list of other parameters. The ongoing full-time position will see Stanyer making recommen- dations on how to mitigate the effects of industry downsizing. “I think that most people would agree that there is an overcapacity of (forest products) manufacturing,” says Stanyer. “Exactly what the shakeout of that is going to be is a lot of what I'll be giving advice on.” “We're going to have timber sup- ply issues in aoa of us for a good number of years yet,” he adds. “The issues will be front and centre for the next 3-5 years anyways.” Actually the TSA review is the escalation of a process which first began in the late 70’s when TSA’s were first formed. Back then the government committed itself to TSA reviews every 5 years. Of the 35 TSA’s in the province, reviews have only taken place in 13.cases. So there is a lot of backlog. No doubt the recommendations that Brother Stanyer and his col- leagues will make will have impacts on annual allowable cuts and, as a result, will effect the number of jobs in the industry. Brother Stanyer, who is 47 years old, has been a skilled advocate for woodworkers for over 24 years. In 1974 he was elected as a Vice- President of Local 1-80 and became President in 1976, a position he held until 1990. In 1982 Stanyer was elected as 3rd Vice-President of the IWA’s former Regional Council No. 1. Over the years he served in various positions on the Regional National Executive Boards. In B.C., as part of his union duties, Stanyer served as Chairman of the Logging Sub-Committee and as a trustee of the IWA/Forest Industry Pension Plan. In addition he served as Chairman of the National Forest Environment Committee which ushered in a new IWA-CANADA Forest Policy in 1989. Stanyer is no stranger when it comes to dealing with government. In 1989 he served on a seven mem- ber task force of B.C.’s Environment and Economy and subsequently served as a labour Representative e Roger Stanyer on the B.C. Round Table on Environment and Economy. In his new position of analyzin TSA’s he will be in contact wit! Labour but no more so than with other interested parts of society. “Government is struggling might- ily with the whole concept of public involvement in a variety of situa- tions,” says Stanyer. Now that he’s part of governmen- the says he has to learn different processes and different ways the government reacts to a variety of issues in front of it. As for timber supply Stanyer says: “The cut is going to come down. There’s no doubt about it. What we don’t have is a clear vision of how many cubic meters we should target (the AAC) for.” Stanyer also says there’s no clear vision of the forest should look like in the future, no vision of what the value-added sector should be or how large it should be and what rela- tionship it should have to the major industry. In short one could say that the province doesn’t have an industrial strategy at all. The forest industry, the government’s elected officials and their assistants like Brother Sanya have their work cut out for them. e Part of the IWA’s delegation at the CLC convention in June was (front row I. to x.) natio nal second vice-president Fred Miron, Local 1.2693 presi- dent Wilf McIntyre, Local 1-3567 first vice-president Joe LeClair, and Local 1-71 business agent Murray Cantelon.