¢ B.C. Premier Mike Harcourt said government will provide workers with
an adjustment strategy and not shunt them aside.

Harcourt promises to give B.C.
government’s help to workers

Responding to the call of forest in-
dustry unions and their Sisters and
Brothers in the labour movement who
are demanding assistance for forest
industry workers in the upcoming
transition period, B.C. Premier Mike
Harcourt made some rhetorical assur-
ances that the NDP is prepared to sit
down and assist workers.

“I believe very passionately that for-
est industry built this province... and
I give my high priority for jobs in the
forest industry,” said the Premier.
“Anybody that thinks that our forest
industry is going to go the way of the
(east coast) cod fishery can forget it.
Because the forest industry is going to
stay the prime industry in B.C. It’s a
sunrise, not a sunset industry.”

In a direct reference to IWA-CANA-
DA members Harcourt said, “I want to
say to you today Gerry (Stoney), I’m
prepared to sit down with your (WA
members) workers and other mem-
bers of the forest industry and work
out, with workers of this province,
ways that we can create jobs - ways
that we stabilize forest workers, fami-
lies, and their communities and ways
that we can create not just more jobs
put also an adjustment strategy so
that workers are treated with dignity

... and the dignity that they deserve
rather than just being shunted aside.”

Harcourt said that under his gov-
ermment B.C. would not get sucked
into the South Moresby park type

ement where hundreds of forest
community workers and their depen-
dants lost their livelihoods.

That likely evoked images of a park
being created out of the Clayoquot
Sound region of the province where
the B.C. government made a compro-
mise to allowing logging under strict
Bat said that the answer to
B.C.’s problems “aren’t what hap-

ened in South Moresby (park) where
workers were tossed aside.” He also
correctly said that people in the
Queen Charlotte Islands feel aban-

-doned. Half of federal funding

promised to help soften the effect of
lost forest industry jobs has never
been delivered as promised by the
federal government, said Harcourt.

“We're not going to see workers
abandoned in B.C. We're going to sit
down with you, we're going to work
out some solutions of value-added
forestry, of not shipping logs out of
this province because when you ship
logs out, you're shipping jobs out of
this province.”

Harcourt said there will be new for-
est industry jobs in intensive forest
management and logging site rehabili-
tation. He pointed to the fact that, in
Sweden, fully 25% of the annual allow-
able cut comes from thinning and
pruning.

The Premier also said a lot of work
has to be done in site rehabilitation. In
referring to IWA members he said “I
can’t think of better people to go in
and take out (i.e. rehabilitate) old log-
ging roads and deal with the erosion
and cleanup the salmon spawning
streams that have been ruined by im-
proper logging roads.”

In reaction to Harcourt’s promises
to create jobs, IWA-CANADA Local 1-85
president Dave Haggard, whose local
has lost hundreds of jobs in the past
few years, says “I've heard this all be-
fore,” when referring to the govern-
ment. “So far Harcourt and his
government haven't created any jobs
and at the CORE table the government
bureaucrats refuse to commit any
new government funds for transition,”
says Brother Haggard. “We're, quite
frankly, not about to get dragged into
the same old programs under UIC and
welfare.”

He adds: “If the government is seri-
ous (about creating jobs) then it
should have a transition strategy in
place before any reductions in annual
allowable cuts.”

As a show of unity between the B.C.
Fed and the provincial NDP govern-
ment, Fed. president Ken Georgetti

said that “at the end of the day, the
NDP is the only party that is commit-
ted to being labow’s partner.”

“We elected a government that’s
consulting labour, not insulting us like
the (previous) Social Credit govern-
ment did.”

Since the NDP took power in Octo-
ber 1991 it has introduced a fairer
labour code which includes anti-scab
legislation. It has also, for the first
time in North America, passed laws
that ensure that farm workers, domes-
tic workers, and bank workers are
covered by Workers’ Compensation
laws.

“We have our disagreements with
the government,” said Georgetti, “but
labour’s views are always requested
and always heard.”

The labour movement's fight back
against the Canada-U.S. free trade
agreement and the impending North
American Free Trade Agreement is
shared by the provincial NDP.

Harcourt told the convention that
his government will fight to protect
our log export restriction regulations
and vital resources such as fresh wa-
ter against attack from the U.S.

“How can you (U.S.) criticize us for
having log export control when Wash-
ington (state) has the same law”. . .
and the (log export control) Jaw in
Oregon is based on the law in British
Columbia that was introduced in
1906,” said Harcourt.

“How Mr. (U.S. President Bill) Clin-
ton can you possible criticize us for
having the same laws that the states
to the south of us have . .. and you in
your forest plan for the northwest
(United States) on July 1 (93) said “we
need to bring log export controls in
the United States.”

“We've been called the drawers of
water and the heavers of wood, well
we're not going to be that . . . (under
free trade) we're going to be watching
the rivers flow down into the United
States and we're going to be watching
the logs flow down to the United
States in tankers and in cars going
down on their railways, if they (the
Americans) have their way.”

“Well I’m telling you no to water ex-
ports. No to shipping logs out of this
province! We want those jobs to stay
right here in British Columbia,” said
Harcourt to a standing ovation.

[sland CORE table process
winds up without answers

by Kim Pollock

The B.C. government's first experi-
ment in democratic decision-making
in land use issues has ended inconclu-
sively.

The much-heralded Commission on
Resource and Environment’s Vancou-
ver Island Round Table broke up on
November 23 without a hoped-for
agreement on land-use or new pro-
tected areas.

One of the key stumbling blocks
was the province’s failure to outline
transition measures to create new for-

est industry jobs and support laid-off
forest workers arid their communities.

“We won't sign any agreement with-
out commitments to ensure our mem-
bers don’t suffer if and when
government decisions wipe out their
jobs,” warned IWA-CANADA vice-presi-
dent Warren Ulley, who represented a
coalition of forest-sector unions at the
Vancouver Island CORE Table.

“In spite of the fact we made it clear
we couldn’t negotiate without assur-
ances on transition funding, govern-
ment chose not to provide those
assurances. We want to see CORE suc-
ceed, but we can’t go any further until
those plans are in place.”

The forest unions did not walk
away from the table, as some news
media have reported. In fact it was
CORE commissioner Steven Owen
who, on learning that the forest em-
ployment sector unions could not pro-
ceed with negotiations, pulled the
plug on the year-old negotiating
process.

At the end of discussions, the Van-
couver Island CORE table was consid-
ering two land-use proposals or
“scenarios”. They were miles apart
and the table appeared to have little
appetite for negotiations that might
close the gap.

One proposal would have limited
increases in protected areas to the
B.C. government’s stated 12% target,
while referring to future, sub-regional
CORE processes decisions on special-
management zones and intensive
forestry areas. That scenario was put
on the table for negotiation by a group
of local community, agriculture, re-
source industry and local government
representatives, including the forest
employment unions.

The scenario called the multi-sector
proposal, incorporated job creation
and transition measures put forward
by the forest unions.

In opposition to the multi-sector
proposal, a scenario favoured by con-
servation groups would put 18 per-
cent of Vancouver Island in Protected
Areas and reduce timber harvesting
on another 15 percent by two-thirds.

In contrast to the multi-sector propos-
al, which would cost about 400 jobs,
the conservationists’ scenario would
eliminate nearly 6000.

“We couldn’t even think about com-
promise with that. It would kill us,”
Ulley said.

With the Vancouver Island table’s
failure to reach consensus on land-use
issues means that it will be Owen who
makes land-use recommendations to
the provincial cabinet, a prospect this
is viewed with unease by many sup-
porters of the multi-sector proposal.

“If Steven cuts the baby in half,
we're sunk,” Ulley notes. “We've al-
ready got a pretty good idea what hap-
pens with 14 or 15 percent protected:
we still lose 2000 or 3000 jobs.”

He said unions and other communi-
ty-minded groups will continue to
press on CORE, government and the
public the need to balance economic,
social and environmental concerns.

“We need to change, we need to be
more sustainable and more efficient.
But you can’t just throw thousands of
people on the streets with nothing but
promises. That’s why we need a firm
commitment from government on a
transition strategy,” Ulley added.

Earlier in November, the Vancouver
Island table had in fact agreed in prin-
ciple to a union-sponsored transition
strategy. It would have ensured that
whenever workers were laid off due
to land-use decisions, an agency
would be established to administer
funds for income support, training
and job creation.

The agency would receive funds at
least equal to the average of those
workers’ wages plus benefits.

In spite of the table’s agreement,
however, government representatives
said they could not provide any “new
money” toward the fund. Instead they
offered only existing government pro-
grams.

This was rejected not only by forest
unions at CORE, but by the recent B.C.
Federation of Labour Convention.

In a unanimous show of support,
B.C. Fed delegates endorsed an emer-
gency resolution calling on the gov-
ernment “to provide meaningful
transitional compensation to union-
ized workers in the forest industries
and their communities that are hurt
by land-use decisions.”

They'll have to look for opportuni-
ties in areas that in the past have been
relatively neglected, such as intensive
silviculture and advanced utilization
of the wood. Most importantly, they'll
have to take the perspective that jobs
and community stability matter most.

Continued on page sixteen

Dy

LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1993/3