iw

e At the plant in Heffley Creek is cop saw operator Ginger Lavinge.

B.C. reman plant creates
more jobs with less wood

As overall timber supplies are de-
creasing there is more need than ever
to create more value out of less wood.
Amongst secondary lumber manufac-
turers there is a real concern over
long term wood supplies.

Secondary wood products manufac-
turers have to be concerned as to
whether or not they can get enough
lumber to keep their operations going.
That is important since they create
more jobs per cubic meter than do di-
mensional lumber mills.

At the Compwood lumber remanu-
facturing plant in Heffley Creek B.C., 12
kilometers north of Kamloops, the
company has been able to get up and
running over the past four years as it

¢ On the finger jointer is operator Noel Silva, a Local 1-417 member.

has been able to get some wood from
Jarge forest companies and on the open
market. Some timber obtained under a
small business license has also given
the company leverage in swapping
and/or trading for raw lumber supplies.
Like nearly every lumber remanufactur-
er Compwood does not have primary
log breakdown capabilities and de-
pends on other mills to do so.

The operation has been in the IWA
for four years and is now on its sec-
ond collective agreement following a
four week strike in September and
October of 1993. The crew struck for
better wages and benefits and made
some significant gains in their con-
tract with the employer.

Photos by Joe Davies

The settlement does not have
wages similiar to the provincial mas-
ter agreement but they are quite good
in comparison to wages in other
southern interior reman operations,
says Financial Secretary Joe Davies.

The workers have their own life in-
surance, dental and medical plans in
addition to their wages.

“We would like to see more of these
type of operations spring up and
would like to see them in the union,”
says Local 1-417 Brother Davies. “This
is what we would call a true value-
added operation, the kind of opera-
tion that we need to create more
jobs.”

The company gets most of its lum-
ber from Tolko Industries, which has
operations at Louis Creek and Heffley
Creek. Most of that wood comes from
the Clearwater region north of Kam-
loops. Other suppliers in the interior
are Weyerhauser, Northwood Pulp
and Timber, and Weldwood Canada.

Compwood takes the lumber that
would otherwise be “sold as is” and
cuts it up for a variety of end users.
Most of the product leaving the plant
is custom component pieces that can
be placed into the jigs of the cus-
tomers in window and door and furni-
ture plants.

The mill is especially particular in
how it sorts and handles the lumber
to get maximum value out of it. In ad-
dition the mill kiln-dries the lumber
further. Traditional lumber is dried to
about a 19% moisture content. In its
own kilns Compwood gets the mois-
ture content down to between 10-12%
which is needed for lamination and
finger-jointing.

The company has successfully mas-
tered the finger-jointing process

which is a bonding process between
shorter lengths of wood. The final re-
sult is an engineered woods product
with great strength and straightness.

The fingerjointing equipment just
began in February of last year and has
had good success in its early days.

Mill manager George Parkes says
the market is realizing that finger-
jointing and laminating produce a
more stable product and that many
customers are now looking for these
type of products.

“We are finger-jointing so we can
utilize and recover the majority of
wood that would have been tradition-
ally wasted,” says Mr. Parkes. “The
size of the timber also has a lot to do
with the necessity to finger-joint.”

As the timber profile indicates, di-
ameters are getting smaller, greater
wood recovery becomes more essen-
tial. The finger-joint is a good alterna-
tive to wood waste.

In Europe, Japan, and the south-
eastern U.S. the process is a much
more common where international
competitors have had a head start for
years.

The mill’s production is sold in Eu-
rope, the United States, Canada, and
in Japan. Japanese customers are now
purchasing more white wood laminate
stocks and cedar products. The com-
pany is careful to give the customer
the lengths that they require.

Currently Compwood has several
product research initiatives underway
to seek out new markets. These ef-
forts can be costly and time consum-
ing.

“The majority of our products (such
as laminated, decorative posts) are
still in the development stage,” says
Parkes.

° Crew at reload centre in Kamloops, B.C. pose for picture.

Tolko reload crew works
steady 12 months a year

While the long, hot summer of 1994
went by and IWA members all over
British Columbia were trying to stay
cool (from both the hot weather and
during contract negotiations) there
are few workplaces where its gets as
warm as in the southern Interior.

At the Tolko Industries Reload Cen-
ter in Kamloops, where four IWA-
CANADA Local 1-417 members are
employed, the hot summer sun can
bake a worker pretty fast if they are
not in an air-conditioned loader.

In Kamloops B.C. there are hot
summers and cold winters. Fortunate-
ly there is work all year round for the
union crew which handles incoming
and outgoing shipments of lumber.

The workers are covered under a
separate collective agreement other
than what covers other Tolko opera-
tions.

The worksite went union under a
voluntary certification when it began
operation in 1985. The workers were
chosen on a seniority and competency
basis from other Tolko operations
certified to the IWA.

On an average day the Reload Cen-
ter loads up to seven long flatcars.
The flatcars come in lengths of 66, 71,
and 73 feet and can take up to 195
tonnes. The largest cars can be loaded
to almost 190,000 board feet of lum-
ber which is more than double the ca-
pacity of two Super-B trailer-
truckloads.

At the Reload Centre they receive a
steady flow of lumber destined for the
United States or the Port of Vancou-
ver and on to overseas markets. The
wood comes into the yard from such

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