MANITOBA FED SUPPORTS

Judy Cook, right, is the

worker-controlled OH&S
centre which is unique in
Canada.

PROVINCIAL HEALTH CENTRE

Director of a trend setting,

PAGE 8

Environment plan

gains momentum
Interfor links up with union

ritish Columbia’s second

largest forest company,

International Forest Prod-

ucts, has linked up with

IWA-CANADA in a joint

environmental initiative
which intends to substantially change
the way things are done in the forest
industry. Both the union and Interfor,
which formally signed a co-operation
agreement on July 3, intend to “estab-
lish the most environmentally respon-
sible forestry program in the
province.”

That is going to take a large com-
mitment and effort which has already
begun. This fall Interfor employees
and its contractor employees, the IWA
and non-union contractors participat-
ed in a series of regional workshops
to define the environmental initia-
tive’s broad outline.

As this issue goes to press the pro-
ceedings of those workshops are
being formulated into general guide-
lines for joint environmental commit-
tees.

In the future, workers will be able
to adopt their own version of a joint
committee’s structure, process and
role. Workers will also help determine
what kind of education and training is
needed.

Warren Ulley, IWA-CANADA’s
National third vice-president and offi-
cer responsible for forestry and envi-
ronment issues, encourages all IWA
members to make a commitment to
the program which is a historic break-
through. For over four decades the
IWA has been trying to get companies
to listen to the need for improved
environmental practices.

Brother Ulley believes that “the pro-

can go a long way into reinstill-
ing the pride in the job we do.”

“This is a joint program and we
have a responsibility as members of
the union to take it back to our opera-
tions and to make it work.”

IWA-CANADA’s National Forest
Policy was adopted by convention
action in 1989 and drew accolades
from business and government who
called the union’s policy practical and
realistic.

However, putting IWA’s forest poli-
cy into practice has been tough going
says Claire Dansereau, the union’s
Director of Forestry and En-
vironmental Policy and Planning.

Our forest policy specifies that
worker committees will participate
fully in company or government plan-
ning and monitoring. By joining with
Interfor the union hopes to achieve
one of these goals. r

“We debated and knocked around
the idea of whether or not we wanted
the committee to be a joint one or just
straight union,” says Sister Dansereau.
“If we really want to get something
done then we need an attitude from a
company that says - ‘yes, we want to
make changes too’ - the only way you
are going to get these changes is
through a joint environmental com-
mittee.”

“We were really pleased when
Interfor approached us with this pro-
gram because we were trying in vain
to get environmental committees
established.”

That hasn’t been an easy task for
the union in an industry which at
large is supposed to be making
changes but is largely interested in
public relations initiatives.

“It’s been very frustrating,” says
Dansereau. “Some companies run
completely the other way when we

Continued on page two

protection.

° At Interfor’s Cleagh Creek division, grapple
yarder hooktender Billy Grief and others are
becoming actively involved in environmental

Workers fired in bid to join union —
Alberta double crosses TWA

In one of the most bizarre and out-
Jandish decisions rendered by a
provincial labour board in recent
years, the Alberta Labour Relations
Board has allowed a company to
freely fire nearly 100 workers during a
union organizing campaign.

On September 25 the ALRB made
official that Tomen Alberta Timber
Industries Ltd.’s outright dismissal of
ninety-nine workers at its Fort
Assiniboine sawmill and Barrhead
planer mill would pemermitied and
that an IWA-CANADA effort to organize
would be squashed. —

National IWA organizer arene
sus worl on
Who vuign for 2-1/2 weeks pricr to the
Sep!

17 firing, says a majority of

the workers want to be in the union.
However, when management found
out that Brother McRae was organiz-
ing the workers, it summarily axed
the workforce.

Such an action is illegal and repre-
hensible. As if Alberta were some
backwards state from the U.S. south
or some slave labour colony in the
third world, the government has
allowed workers to be terminated for
wanting to join a union.

Local 1-207 president Mike Pisak
vows to fight the decision until the
bitter end.

“This type of decision sends an omi-
nous message to employers,” says
Brother Pisak. “All the employer has
to do in the future is terminate work-
ers when a union drive is on and say

that it was done for financial rea-
sons.”

Currently the local union has gone
back to the ALRB, asking the Board to
deal with it again under a motion of
reconsideration. Local 1-207 is also fil-
ing legal papers with the court of the
Queen’s Bench in Edmonton.

Tomen axed its crew on September
17 and rehired 9 workers the next day.
The union cried foul to the ALRB and
on September 21 (the following
Monday) met with the Board with
charges that Tomen was eu of
unfair labour practices. Under all
provincial labour laws, if a worker(s)
is terminated for wanting to freely
join a union, the employer is guilty of
an unfair labour practice and the
worker(s) must be reinstated. That
obviously didn’t happen in this case.

At the September 21 board meeting

with the company and the ALRB a
mutual decision was made that the
IWA would drop its charge of unfair
labour practices if all the workers
were allowed to vote on joining the
union.

A secret ballot of the complete
workforce was then taken on
September 23 and the union waited to
hear the results of the ballot. Two
days later the Board ruled that the
ballots couldn’t be counted because
on the day of vote application,
September 18, there wasn’t a majority
of workers at Tomen who had signed
check-off forms showing union sup-
port. The workers were fired the day
before.

Even though Brother McRae had a
clear cut majority of workers signed
up to IWA check-off before the firing,
the ALRB ignored this. The Board
effectively made a decision that the
employees would be dumped and
double-crossed the IWA, which

Continued on page thirteen