Union battles back against Interfor’s attempts to shut down Flavelle Cedar e Flavelle Cedar is a profitable mill which sits on a prime piece of real estate at the end of Burrard Inlet in Port Moody, British Columbia. nternational Forest Products (In- terfor), the largest sawmilling outfit in British Columbia has pulled a fast one on the I.W.A and the union has fought back. Less than a year after it promised to keep employees at the Flavelle Cedar in Port Moody sawmill working, Inter- for has tried to axe 214 workers in a move to shut most plant down, as of January 19, 1996. The move sent shock. waves through the union and the community as the announcement, made on Au- gust 23, was a reverse of what Interfor had been saying all along. In the spring of this year, when Interfor took over the Flavelle mill from Weldwood Canada, it was pledged to full employ- ment of former Weldwood employees. In fact the union, which has had good labour relations with Interfor over the past 10 - 15 years was a sup- porter of Interfor’s takeover of the Flavelle mill, the former Weldwood Empire sawmill in Squamish and Weldwood Coastal timber licences. The union sees Interfor move to shut the Port Moody mill as a betrayal of the workers, most of who whole- heartedly supported the takeover. “We were shocked that Interfor had set out to deliver termination notices,” say I.W.A. CANADA President Gerry Stoney. “This move flies in the face of a letter of understanding that the com- pany signed with the provincial gov- ernment.” In that letter, Section 16 states that except where termination is justified because of a 5% reduction in the annu- Malette strike Continued from page one crew walked off over a contracting out issue. Brother Rivard hopes that the pat~ tern agreement can be replicated in other operations. Both Local 1-2995 and Local 2693 in Thunder Bay are bargaining under the auspices of the Northern Ontario District Council (NODC), which is an amalgam body of the two locals that has a 40 year tradition of joint bargaining. Local 2693 is bargaining for approx- imately 600 member in 6 sawmills, while Local 1-2995 represents about 900 workers in 9 operations. 2/LUMBERWORKER/NOVEMBER, 1995 al allowable cut (AAC) caused by the merger or because of an AAC rollback due to reasons beyond Interfor’s con- trol, “Interfor or its affiliates must em- ploy the existing employees of Weld- wood at Weldwood’s milling and woods operations being acquired by Interfor.” Section 16, negotiated between In- terfor and Forests Minister Andrew Petter and Interfor spells out that even if layoffs are foreseen, the com- pany and its affiliates “must take all reasonable steps necessary, including further value added processing to en- sure the fair treatment of and maxi- Interfor has jeopardized a good relationship with the ILW.A. mization of employment opportunity for both the existing employees of Weldwood and Interfor milling and wood operations.” The fact is that Interfor tried to spring the layoff announcement at a time when its Weldwood Division does not lack timber supply and there is a glut in the log market. In June the company let the work- ers know that it had plans to build a new mill on the Flavelle cedar site and a meeting to talk about this was scheduled with Petter a day after the surprise termination announcement was made. To add insult to injury In- terfor made the initial termination an- nouncement when employees were on a vacation shutdown and due to re- turn to work the following Monday. “This type of action is unaccept- able,” adds Brother Stoney. “We im- mediately told the Minister of Forests that this type of action is unaccept- able and that it the company fails to live up to the intent of the letter of consent, our preference is that the government cancel the agreement.” “Interfor is trying to blame AAC cut- backs from their other areas of the company and apply it to the Port Moody operation,” said the union president. “This is wrong. They must consider the Flavelle and Squamish (Empire) mill as stand alone opera- tions that have more wood than they need.” The Flavelle and Empire mills con- sume about 750,000 cubic meters of wood annually. When Interfor took over the Weldwood operations, it ob- tained rights to over 1,027,000 cubic meters of timber in its AAC. “This is not the way to do business,” says Stoney. “This company has taken what was a good business relation- ship and jeopardized it.” “There is a price to paid for harvest- ing timber in B.C. and one of them is to provide employment,” he adds. Sonny Ghag, first vice president of Local 1-3567 says that Section 16 reads in plain English and that Inter- for should have never tried such a move. “When Interfor wanted to buy Weld- wood, they had to agree to those con- ditions laid out,” says Brother Ghag. “If they are not going to run Flavelle then they should give those logs to the government.” So what is Interfor’s agenda in shut- ting down most of the existing Flavelle operation? For one thing, the Flavelle site is on 33 acres of waterfront property in Port Moody. Although it has been on industrial land for more that 90 years, that could change. So does Interfor, want to carve up its Port Moody property and get into the real estate business in the long term? “If this was MacMillan Bloedel or Fletcher Challenge it would be ex- pected,” says Ghag. “But it really dis- turbs us that Interfor could be plan- ning out this kind of thing.” “I think that Interfor wanted to shut down the mill and test Section 16 of the agreement with the government,” adds the local union officer. “They didn’t think that the I.W.A. would come out with the position that we took.” “We told Interfor that they have not lost any Weldwood timber, so how can they justify this?” he asks. Interfor has not backed off com- pletely. I.W.A. plant chairman Gerry Gower says that Interfor is going ahead with large modernization plans anyway which will result in 400 layoffs at vari- ous operations. No one is sure yet where the impact will be. Local 1-3567 represents workers at. nine Interfor operations. They are Flavelle Cedar, Hammond Cedar, Mc- Donald Cedar, McKenzie Seizai, West- ern White Wood, Fraser Mills, White Wood, Albion, and Bay Lumber, “They say they don’t intend to change plans,” says Brother Gower. “We don’t know what their plans for Flavelle. But our (the union's) plans say that the transfer agreement make it clear that they must use Flavelle employees.” There are 367 people whose jobs count on the mill. Three hundred and thirty-four are union jobs and 33 are staff. Interfor’s modernization proposals have to be satisfactory to the Forest Minister. The Flavelle mill has remained prof- itable and provides stable jobs. There’s no need to shut it down. And there is no shortage of fiber supply. Brother Gower says that when In- terfor first bid on the mill, one major reason in favour of the takeover was Weldwood’s safe timber supply. “We were told by Weldwood that would be no reason to be concerned that this plant would go down,” says Brother Gower. Interfor told the workers that they like the community, like the mill and like the access to the mill through Burrard Inlet. The takeover of the Weldwood op- erations also has put Interfor in a bet- ter position to obtain wood chips. “We were actually looking forward to working with Interfor,” says Gow- er. “They had a reputation of being a good employer.” The company must take all reasonable steps necessary to keep former Weldwood operations open “They met with every person that work in the plant (prior to the takeover). It was really smooth. All they did was give us reason after rea- son on how this was going to be a win-win situation.” Just what Interfor has in store for Flavelle is uncertain. According to Brother Gowan, in June Interfor's head of the red cedar group, Jack Draper to the union that they planned to invest in the Flavelle, in building a small log mill. The com- pany had some quotes to do work on the site. By mid-July those plans had been changed. With all of the uncertainty, workers might yet still be in a battle to save their jobs. But Brother Gower says that the crew is ready for a fight if need be. The members got together to stop the first shutdown announcement. “The was total involvement of the crew,” says Gower. “They decided they had to fight for their jobs.” There was a well coordinated cam- paign of letter writing, phone-ins, and petitions to provincial and local politi- cians. “It’s very serious and it’s quite a concern to working people when a job they have done their whole life is about to disappear,” says Gower. “They (the workers) rely on those LW.A. jobs to provide for the needs of their families.”