»

Williams Lake local

gets presence back
in bush operations

After a nearly fifteen year
absence from the bush, IWA Local 1-
425 has made some inroads into
representing loggers in the B.C.
interior. In January of this year the
Williams Lake based local union
signed up a logging crew of 11 work-
ers employed by Van Horlick Log-
ging.

That is a milestone for the local
since having lost its presence in the
woods in the late 1970’s when the
industry aggressively contracted
out log harvesting and hauling and
the IWA’s logging membership
dropped to zero.

“We consider the Van Horlick cer-
tification to be an indication that
the non-union sectors and owner
operators out there are now looking
seriously at the union for represen-
tation,” says Local 1-425 president
Brian Symmes.

The eleven employees operate
feller bunchers, skidders, and load-
ers for the company’s two opera-
tions contracted for West Fraser
Timber Mills Ltd. One is working in
the lodge pole pine country of the
west Chilcotin plateau, and the oth-
er is employed in the fir belt region
east of Quesnel Lake.

It’s been tough to get small, inde-
pendent business operators into the
union, says Brother Symmes. How-
ever he says “that conditions in the
interior bush are now getting to a
point where they (the loggers) are
getting screwed around so much by
the bigger companies that some of
them are thinking seriously about
joining the union.”

Today the local union is also
involved in a battle to represent the
interests of workers in the logging
industry’s trucking sector. The
union is now trying to legally repre-
sent truck owners who are battling
with West Fraser Timber for job
security and hourly rates.

In early 1993 when the union was
battling with West Fraser over the
truck issue, Van Horlick, the owner
of Van Horlick logging interjected
himself into the dispute on behalf of
West Fraser. Subsequently the log-
gers working for him became very
upset and contacted Local 1-425.

IWA organizer Lyle Olson then
contacted the loggers and brought
them into the union. Since then the
workers have been protected by a
union agreement with Van Horlick.

According to one worker, Van
Horlick routinely shortchanged his
employees over payment on statuto-
ry holidays and travel time. Even
with the union certification in place,
there have been difficulties getting
proper payments on stats.

After the IWA got the workers in
the union, it got them a $1/hour
increase in the first year, and 60¢
for the second year.

“It would be nice if all of the log-
gers in the Cariboo/Chilcotin were
in the union, then a guy would
know what he would be getting in
return for his. work,” one worker
told the Lumberworker, wishing to
remain anonymous.

In the B.C. interior there are
hundreds of owner/operators who
are difficult to unionize.

“If you can track down a company
it may be a father and son team
with some cousins or other relatives

working for the owner,” says Broth-
er Symmes. “These operators are
very hard to do anything with.”

If the Van Horlick certification
proves as a foothold for the local,
there are another 300-400 non-
union loggers out there in its juris-
dictional area. Symmes says the
local has a good relationship overall
with the non-union sector and there
has to be special care taken in orga-
nizing them.

“The (major forest) companies in
this area have such control over the
timber that they can play a strong
hand. If the majors get word that
we've been talking to non-union log-
gers then they can put pressure on
the contractors.”

A
\

© Local 1-425 member Victor Toopitsin wrenches on Steyr head.

Disability Institute under construction for 794

Plans for a new “National Insti-
tute on Disability Management and
Research” are well underway. It’s
all happening on Vancouver Island
in Port Alberni where construction
is taking place to house a Disability
Institute in cooperation with the
B.C. Government and North Island
College, a provincial education facil-
ity.

A new 1200 square foot office and
meeting room facility to house the
institute is currently being built on
the tip of the south wing of the NIC
Port Alberni Campus, and if all goes
well the first phase should be up
and running by fall of 1994.

Although the Disability Institute
and North Island College won’t be
one in the same, they will be work-
ing together to further the issues of
the disabled in our society.

For the Disabled Forestry Work-
ers Foundation of Canada (DFWFC),
the new institute will represent
years of sustained effort in the
ongoing attempt to find ways of
reintegrating disabled workers back
into the workplace.

Wolfgang Zimmerman himself an
injured forest worker and an execu-
tive director of DFWFC, says that
the institute will open with three
offices, a reception area and a meet-
ing room. The DFWEFC has submit-
ted a comprehensive business plan
to get the institute up and running.

“We definitely have some objec-
tives that we are trying to achieve,”
says Mr. Zimmerman.

The mandate of the new national
Institute “will be to increase the
labour force integration and partici-
pation of people with disabilities
through effective partnership with
business and labour, government,
rehabilitation professionals and
consumers.”

What is interesting for IWA mem-
bers is that the Institute will con-
tinue the work of the DFWFC’s long
term goal of getting different par-
ties working together to get injured
workers back into leading produc-
tive lives.

Earl Foxcroft, retired ex-presi-
dent of Port Alberni Local 1-85, who
serves as IWA-CANADA’s National
Representative on Disabilities, says
that the plans for the institute have
been in the works for over nine
years.

Brother Foxcroft says that the
program will eventually have
impact for IWA members.

“We are hoping to be able to even-
tually set up a case management
situation in everyone of our (union)
operations so that when someone
becomes injured or disabled on or
off the job we are able to deal with
it immediately and assure that indi-
vidual that their progress will get
him/her back to the operation as
soon as possible,” he says.

Currently the IWA is involved in a
pilot project in MacMillan Bloedel’s
Port Alberni Somass cedar mill
which has been underway for about.
18 months now. The Communica-
tion Energy and Paperworkers
Union also has a pilot project with
the employer at MB’s pulp and
paper mill in Powell River.

“We still have to solve some prob-
lems in the case programs yet, there
is still a fair amount of work to do,”
says Brother Foxcroft.

The union’s and management
have been jointly working on the
disabled worker programs, much as
in the same cooperative fashion as
is done in the joint Employee and
Family Assistance Program (EFAP).

“We've looked at the EFAP pro-
gram as being very helpful-in
designing the disability manage-
ment model,” says Foxcroft.

The DFWFC has also looked at
disability management programs of
governments in Germany, and
those of major corporations in the
United States.

“One of the things that we discov-
ered right off the bat is that there
are major savings to the employer
and to society in financial terms,”
he says. “Then there is the obvious
human benefit of getting people
back to work.”

The costs of disabilities to Cana-
dian society are staggering. A con-
servative estimate for 1986 puts
Canada’s direct disability related
costs at over $20 billion.

The costs that come out of work
place accidents are extremely high.
By 1989 total Workers’ Compensa-
tion claims across the country
reached over $3.9 billion. By the
year 2000 Labour Canada estimates
the WCB direct claims costs will be
over $7 billion in current dollars. It
also says that direct and indirect

costs of industrial accidents alone
will cost between $14 - $17 billion
annually.

In addition to the financial costs
of injury there are immense person-
al costs felt by those who are
injured and their families.

Many people with disabilities
experience problems with their
mental health, and an erosion of
confidence and skills needed to par-
ticipate in everyday life.

According to 1986 statistics
slightly more than 40% of people
with disabilities are employed. The
cost of having the other 60% on
social assistance are highly shock-
ing not only in economic but also in
personal terms.

According to the business plan
submitted by the government to the
Ministry of Skills, Labour and
Training, the Institute will serve as
a focal point for the collaboration of
labour market policy.

According to the plan “traditional
approaches have been piecemeal
and badly fragmented across r®
vate sector employers, unio
groups, and government depart-
ments. This fragmentation has
made it difficult to achieve the coor-
dination among labour market part-
ners that is crucial for successful
integration/reintegration.”

The activities of the Institute will
be including the dissemination of
information to labour market part-
ners, resource development and
practical training, and applied
research.

Three key areas for those activi-
ties have been identified by the
DFWFC. They are the return to
work for those who have had to
leave employment, job retention by
those who are employees but are a!
risk of losing their jobs, and jo
entry for those who have never bee
in the labour force.

Part of the Institute’s overall
agenda during its first two years of
running will be to forge alliances
among potential partners with an
interest in the area of labour force
integration/reintegration.

These alliances can take place in
the following areas; International
Agencies, consumer organizations,
service providers, government, and
business and labour sectors.

5 0
10/LUMBERWORKER/NOVEMBER, 1993