Kootenay Community College in Cranbrook, B.C. L. to r. are David Sherret, Paul Kazakoff, Glen Waite, Melcholm Logan,
Randy Wilcox, Brian Bertrand, Rainer Schwarz, Bobby Gill, Jit Mann, John Rossel, Albert Gartner, Richard Romano, Ter-
renee Irving, and Leonar Holmgren. See story page 6.

CEDAR DUST A
THREAT TO HEALTH
OF SOME WORKERS

Despite proof that cedar
dust causes asthma in
some workers, the WCB
lacks a clear policy to
deal with the problem.

FEATURE PAGES 8-9

Fed government backs off
on two-tiered UIC reform

After considerable pressure and
lobbying by trade unions and social
action groups, the federal minister in
charge of the Unemployment Insur-
ance program, Lloyd Axworthy, an-
nounced that he was not going to

roceed with implementing a two-

Qe unemployment insurance pro-

Under the proposed changes, the
federal Liberals wanted to enact new
regulations in the U.I. program that
would have greatly reduced the bene-
fits and availability of U.I. to seasonal
and so-called “repeat” users.

Public hearings on the proposed
changes were conducted by both a
House of Commons Committee and a
special Working Group on Seasonal
Work and Unemployment Insurance
Although both processes found little
support for the proposed changes, it
was the report of the Working Group
that provided the most detailed and
negative criticism of the government’s
ULI. proposals.

One of the key members of that

Ores Group was former National
inion President Jack Munro. As the
only voice for labour on the panel, Mr.
Munro worked extensively during the
review process to build the case
against the two-tiered proposal that

Mr. Axworthy wanted to implement.

On that issue, the report was clear

in its rejection of Mr. Axworthy’s ap-

‘h. The report noted that, “We do
not believe it would be fair to intro-
duce a two-tiered system because it
would stigmatize those involved in
seasonal work and penalize the vic-
tims of unemployment for something
that was beyond their control. It

would be particularly harmful to cut
back benefits of low income earners
in seasonal work.”

The Group’s report also talked
about several important issues that
labour and social groups had put for-
ward including;

e The need to design training plans
at a workplace level that are clearly
connected to jobs with a future. The
report noted that while many areas of
new training needed to be addressed,
employers in Canada had to take a

greater responsibility for putting that
training in place.

The need to recognize that seasonal
work, especially in resource sectors,
is a valuable and significant part of
the Canadian economy. By enacting
changes that would disproportionate-
ly penalize seasonal work and work-
ers, the Working Group felt that the
proposed system would have a nega-
tive and adverse impact on some of

Continued on page two

¢ GEARING UP FOR NEGOTIATIONS with the sawmill industry in Northern On-
tario are members of the Northern Ontario District Council of the I.W.A. who

held their wage and contract conference
ber Marc Dusablon, at the Norbord sawmill in Cochrane, Ontario. See page 7.

April. Above is Local 1-2995 mem-

Photo by Betty Roper East Kootenay Community College

Unions fight
Klein’s union
bashing agenda

In the province of Alberta, which
has the lowest rate of unionization of
any province, the Conservative gov-
ernment of Ralph Klein is out to get
rid of organized labour. In mid-March,
a vote to study right-to-work laws
passed in the provincial legislature.

That vote, under a Conservative ma-

jority, will fast-track a study which
will examine the abolition of compul-
sory union membership and union se-
curity agreements. To the labour
movement, the government’s move is
seen as a deliberate attempt to legal-
ize union bashing.
Union security provisions are es-
sential to protect democratic rights of
workers to form unions. Unions have
fought many battles to ensure that if a
majority of workers want to be repre-
sented by a union, they should have
that right.

Right-to-work laws are common in
the United States, mostly in the South
where unions are weak and standards
of living are very poor in relation to
the rest of the country.

Under right-to-work laws workers
can be employed at a unionized work
site without being a member of the
union and paying union dues. But the
union still has the obligation to bar-
gain for the person(s) that opt out of
paying dues.

Basically, right-to-work laws are de-
signed to weaken organized labour
and allow employers to play all kinds
of unscrupulous games to make sure
that workers don’t join unions.

“If right-to-work ever becomes law
in Alberta it would make it very tough
for us to survive as a viable local
union,” says I.W.A. Local 1-207 Presi-
dent Mike Pisak. “This type of labour
law would see employers playing all
kinds of tricks to ensure that workers
did not pay dues to our organization.”

Employer tactics to keep out.
unions are bad enough now, says
Brother Pisak. Right-to-work laws
would encourage employers to more
closely screen-out workers who are
orientated towards unions.

To a great extent that already ex-
ists, says Local 1-207 Financial Secre-
tary Bob DeLeeuw. In the country’s
most non-unionized province, the
LW.A. has about 850 direct jobs in the
forest industry, which has over 17,000
direct and 12,000 indirect jobs.

Brother Deleeuw says that most
forestry operations in the province do
not have unions because many em-
ployers use intense screening process-
es to ensure that pro-union workers
are kept to an minumum.

Those politicians who champion
the cause of right-to-work mask their
anti-union bias as supporters of indi-
vidual rights. They also believe that
employers should have absolute free-
dom to hire workers outside of a’
union contract.

Gary Freidel, a Tory MLA from
Peace River told the Edmonton media
that there “should be freedom of
choice - it there’s a job to be done and

Continued on page two