IWA goes to

bat for
truckers

While contract negotiations with
Repap, Manitoba's major forest com-
pany, are on hold, IWA-CANADA
Local 1-324 is attempting to negotiate
anew Agreement between Repap and
the Northern Wood Haulers
Association (NWHA).

The local union is sitting down and
assisting the NWHA, an employer
association which has 39 trucks that
haul wood for Repap, in negotiations
for a fair price. As in all contract
negotiations this year, Repap is asking
for concessions but the IWA is hang-
ing tough and refuses to give in.

The agreement between the NWHA.
and Repap is key because IWA mem-
bers are employed on all 39 trucks, of
which 25 are now working.

The last three-year deal between
the parties expired on April 30, 1992.
In the meantime Repap has been
phasing out the work given to the
NWHA in favour of contracting the
work to stump-to-dump operators.

For more than 15 years and prior to
Repap’s takeover of Manitoba Forest
Products (Manfor) in 1989, the IWA
has negotiated contracts for the
NWHA. Today as Repap is introducing
massive technological change to its
woodlands operators and is slashing
its workforce in as many places as it
can, the company is trying to phase
out the NWHA completely.

In its place, Repap wants to give
more work to contractors who cut,
skid, and haul the wood to the millsite
(stump-to-dump).

“We believe that Repap has every
intention of doing away with the
NWHA,” says Local 1-324 third vice-
president Doug Northcott, who drives

¢ At Repap sawmill in The Pas, a grapple unloads truck directly onto log deck.

for Sylmak Trucking, a member of the
association.

“The wood haulers have been
around a long time and Repap can’t
put the screws to the Association like
they can to a single operator.”

The NWHA is a credible organiza-
tion of professional truckers who
know what the real rolled up costs of
doing business are. They are not the
green upstart contractors that Repap
is looking for so that they can cut the
hauling rates.

Right now the laid off WA mem-
bers who work for the NWHA compa-
nies want to know how much work
they are going to get and when they
are going to get it. The union is look-
ing at a one-year deal at this time and
is waiting to see what is going to hap-
pen with the phasing in of chip haul
trucks into Repap operations.

Malette, Lecours purchase
assets of bankrupt competitor

HEARST, ONTARIO - Over 300 IWA-
CANADA members lost their jobs
here in late June when Levesque
Lumber (Hearst) Ltd. and Custom
Sawmill (Hearst) Ltd. was sold after
being in receivership for over 3
months. The sawmill and planer oper-
ations have since been bought out by
two neighbouring competitors,
Malette Lumber and Lecours Lumber.

According to IWA Local 1-2995
President Norm Rivard, Malette and
Lecours have moved in to grab
Levesque’s old timber rights and not
to save the mill operations. The union
jobs in the shutdown mill, planer and
logging operations may be lost for

jood unless the Ontario government
= the new purchasers to maintain

So far Bud Wildman, Ontario’s
Minister of Natural Resources, has
made a public commitment to main-
tain jobs in Hearst and the Val Coté

Region. Wildman has said that he
won't allow timber reallocation to any
party unless people in Hearst and sur-
a ing areas are employed.
In the past decade the Hearst,
Mattice, Val Coté Chee
region has lost over direct jobs as
two major sawmills shut down, three
related manufacturers closed
and two secondary business jobs
were lost. Other than in the forest sec-
tor, there’s poe pany alternatives for
_ people livi jose communities.
The Wa has joined with local

politicians and others to save the mill.

In a letter to Ontario Premier Bob

Rae, written by Local 1-2995’s Damien

oy; the mayor of Hearst; the Reeve
the township of Mattice - Val Coté,
e president of the Hearst Economic

a

Development Corporation; the presi-
dent of a committee of staff employ-
ees and president of the Nord-Aski
Frontier Development, the premier
was asked to help save the jobs.

The letter to Rae said that wood
resources are sufficient, the local
labour force is known for its high
quality work and production, and the
sawmill is generally efficient.

Malette and Lecours have bought
Levesque’s fixed assets for a song.
The mill was purchased from receiver
Emst and Young for a mere $1.7 mil-
lion. That’s the sawmill, planer,
mobile equipment, etc. Malette bought
Levesque’s log inventory for $2.7 mil-
lion and Lecours grabbed the stock
piled lumber for $1.1 million. “They
paid more for the damn wood than
they did for the mill,” says Brother
Rivard. “It’s an unbelievable situa-
tion.”

Being as the mill was bought for rel-
atively little, the local union feels
there is little intention, if any, of open-
ing it again.

At present a timber inventory and
study is being done for the purchasers
by Ernst and Young. The study is sup-
posed to include input from the com-
munity, labour and government in the
examination of the mills’ future viabil-
ity. The purchasers have said they will
explore the timber inventory in the
areas and examine value-added
opportunities.

Even though some say there’s not
enough timber to run the milling oper-
ations, the local union says the real
reason for the closure was that
Levesque was going bankrupt for
other mistakes it had made in the

past.

Traditionally Manfor and now
Repap uses contractors to truck haul
logs for its sawmill and pulp mill. It is
currently phasing out the hauling of
logs for its pulp mill in The Pas and is
introducing roadside chippers which
will chip full length trees and load the
chips into trailer trucks.

In the past the NWHA hauled wood
cut directly by Repap company
employers. Now with the introduction
of changes to harvesting (feller buck-
ers), processing (roadside chippers)
and hauling (chip trailer trucks), the
Association’s traditional work load is
at risk.

“Repap is trying to force people into
accepting tech change,” says Brother

Workers fired

Continued from page one

dropped charges of unfair labour
practices in exchange for a vote.

Brother McRae says he’s “shocked
and dismayed” by the decision and
says if allowed to stand, the prece-
dent will “devastate workers who
want to join a union.”

In nearly four years as a National
Organizer, and prior to the Tomen
campaign, Brother McRae hasn’t seen
one worker fired during the cam-
paigns he has worked on. In fact dur-
ing campaigns he reassures workers
that they can’t legally be fired for
union activity.

Now that the workers have seen
their rights trampled on, many of
them have left the Ft. Assiniboine and
Barrhead area. Brother McRae says
that workers will carry the experience
with them.

“Our worst fear during an organiz-
ing campaign is that the plant will run
away to some other city or province
to get away from certification,” says
the IWA’s National Organizing
Director, Lyle Pona. “But this is much
worse because the government is not
even allowing the workers to exercise
their democratic right to join a
union.”

While many workers have left the
corn-belt region where the plants are,
Tomen has begun rehiring.

“We have no doubt in our minds
that the mill will be up and running
again in the future,” says Pisak.

Prior to the firing the company told
several employees that it would not
operate as a union shop. Tomen made
no secret that it was against the IWA.

According to sources, before the
wholesale firing, one of Tomen’s staff
members phoned the Alberta
Employment Standards Branch to
investigate termination procedures.
During a termination procedure the
employer would have to dish out ter-
mination pay.

The workers who were fired

LUMBERWORKER/OCTOBER, 1992/13

Northcott. “They want to get people
to take stump-to-dump contracts
which obviously include log or chip
hauling.”

Currently the company has a road-
side chipper at its Thompson-
Wawbowden (Nelson River District)
and plans to put in another chipper in
the Athapap region next year.

During the introduction of this tech
change, Repap is phasing out the
NWHA and is only saying it will take
drivers from the Association if it
needs chip truck drivers. Meanwhile
50 IWA members working for the
NWHA remain in limbo while their
employers don’t have an agreement
with Repap.

received unemployment insurance
records noting a mill closure and
shortage of work for unspecified rea-
sons as cause for dismissal.

An editorial in a local newspaper
called the Barrhead Leader
(September 22, 1992) said the econo-
my of Barhead and Fort Assiniboine
“suffered a severe stab wound to the
heart” as a result of “the communities
major employer firing almost 100
employees without any notice.”

The editorial suggests that.... “the
employees would do well to vote no
to the union...”

The editorial went on: “If they don’t
the president of Tomen has made it
clear to this newspaper, and should
communicate it well to his employees
that they cannot afford to operate
paying union wages and benefits and
therefore would close the company.
Most common sense employees
would consider very carefully before
voting to put themselves out of a job.”

“The editorial reads like the compa-
ny wrote it,” says Brother McRae. “It’s
unbelievable, the amount of pull that
Tomen has in these small communi-
ties.”

Tomen only pays the workers on a
$8.00/hr. base rate with no benefits.
The mill, has substandard wages and
working conditions. Seniority plays
no role in promotion, layoffs or call
backs.

The mill in Ft. Assiniboine employs
about 55-60 people in the manufacture
of spruce and pine lumber. It cuts pri-
marily for the Japanese markets and
its lumber recovery efficiency is low
by industry standards.

IWA Local 1-207 will continue to
fight for the fired workers. There is no
other choice. Alberta is a haven for
union bashers.

“Alberta is no different than the
U.S. south and has been for many
years,” says Local 1-207’s financial
secretary, Bob DeLeeuw. “Labour
board decisions like the one concern-
ing the Tomen firings are making it
next to impossible to organize.”

“