PRESIDENT’S MESSA\

Secure employment must
be treated seriously

by Gerry Stoney

‘yn an economy where, more and more,
| __ the pace and direction of change is being

' set by large corporate interests outside

' of Canada, a recent series of articles in

| the New York Times has provided a chill-
._ + ing reminder to trade unionists, both in
this country and in the United States, as to the’
kind of values and thinking thathave become
dominant.

Probably the most revealing comment from
these articles was a quote from an AT&T vice
president on the future of jobs and work. Ac-
cording to this executive: “People need to
look at themselves self-employed, as vendors
who come to this company to sell their skill.”

He then went on to say that at AT&T “we
have to promote the whole concept of the
workforce being contingent.”

For this executive, jobs are being replaced
by “projects” and “field of works” and all of
this is giving rise to a society that is increas-
ingly “jobless but not workless.”

For woodworkers these comments are a
throwback to the struggle we faced in B.C. in
1986 when employers in the province decided
that their version of “joblessness” was going
to be contracting out.

They wanted to have unfettered access to

contracting out and
they wanted lan-
guage in the collec-
tive agreement that
would allow that to
happen. After four
and a half months
of striking we suc-+
ceeded in sending a
message that wood-
workers see secure
jobs as paramount
and would press
that case at every
opportunity.

Not surprisingly,
workers in other
sectors of the Cana-
dian economy have
faced similiar strug-
gles and have been
forced to counter
the push for less job certainty with some fairly
dramatic measures. Whether it has been in the
automotive sector, the steel industry or the
public sector, the concern has been the same;
workers deserve fair treatment in a changing
economy and job security has to figure promi-
nently in any assesment of what is fair.

We in the I.W.A. don’t believe employment
should be treated with indifference by either
employers or governments. Good jobs are the
mainstay of every community; undermine
steady employment and you undermine that
community.

In both Canada and the United States, that
issue of confidence is only now beginning be-
come a mainstream concern of governments.

For too long the obses-
sion of debt, deficit
and zero inflation have
been elevated to centre
stage.

The whole concept
of full employment and
vital communities has
been relegated to the
back burner. And
therein lies the prob-
lem: pushing workers
to the margins with
high unemployment
only guarantees that
the downward spiral
will gain speed, not re-
verse itself.

For their part the
federal Liberals have
swallowed the deficit
hysteria hook, line and
sinker and are now trying to ignore the real
consequences; unemployment, community in-
stablity and economic stagnation.

Workers are not disposable commodities.
Their employment deserves security and pro-
tection, not the “contingency” status that the
AT&T executive is promoting.

It’s time to get back to basics. We need gov-
ermmments who accept that their role is to pro-
mote and protect full employment strategies.
We need governments who take responsibilty
for the unemployed and provide solid income
and training support during the tough times.

Any less effort by governments will only
serve to insure a race to the bottom where
workers and their commununities lose.

LANDS AND FORES

Spotted owl case hits
British Columbia courts

by Kim Pollock

ast month I spent two days in court. The
Supreme Court of British Columbia, if you

_ please.
bes) No it wasn’t my atrocious driving record
| sor problems with my bank balance. In fact I
wasn’t in the dock at all.

No, that dubious honour went to a usually-up-
standing citizen, provincial Chief Forester Larry
Pedersen.

Pedersen’s figurative appearance resulted from
his determination of the annual allowable cuts for
the Fraser and Soo timber supply areas, two huge
chun of Crown forest in the Lower Mainland of

And it wasn’t that the AAC was too low, even
though Fraser's annual harvest was reduced by 12
percent and Soo’s by 13 percent.

No, Pedersen was being challenged for allegedly
setting harvests too high.

The action was brought by Sierra Legal Defence
on behalf of the Western Canada Wilderness Com-
mittee.

The two green groups want the court to throw
out chief Pedersen’s determination on the grounds
that in deciding on the harvest level for the two ar-
eas, he failed to take into account the habitat
needs of the northern spotted owl.

They told Mdme. Justice Allan that Pedersen
should have withdrawn timber volumes to reflect
the needs of the owls.

Crown lawyer Angela Westamacott countered
that under the provincial Forest Act, land-use deci-
sions are the responsibility of Cabinet; that Cabi-
net has not yet decided on a strategy for owls; that
it would be improper for Pedersen to presume to.
make a decision on land-use and that he clearly in-
dicated as much when he outlined the reasons for
his determination.

Lawyer Maureen Headley of Banister and Com-
pany and I were there to make sure that the views
of forest workers were heard in the matter. We
said that a ruling on the owls by the chief prior to
the Cabinet's decision on the matter would preju-
dice our ability to take part in the political process
leading up to a decision.

In the end, Judge Allan upheld the Chief, ruling
that the AAC should stand. But you can bet WCWC
will be back.

Why does all this matter?

It clearly shows the re-
sources available to
groups to WCWC.

And it shows that we
in Canada are not im-
mune to some of the
processes that have so
seriously tied up the tim-
ber industry in the Unit-
ed States.

Remember, it was con-
cerns about the spotted
owl that led to a massive
reduction in the amount
of timber available for
harvest on public lands in the U.S. Pacific North-
west. In fact, harvest levels were cut by more than
80 percent in the course of about five years, at a
cost of some 30,000 direct forest sector jobs.

Now Canadian green groups appearing to be
“playing the owl card”

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the noisy,
long-running fight around northern spotted owls is
that it needn’t be happening. That’s because a
strategy to preserve owls and their habitat and
carry on timber harvesting is perfectly plausible.

In fact, such a strategy has been developed and
shopped to government and conservation groups
by International Forest Products of Vancouver.
Interfor is the largest licencee operating in the
Canadian range of the spotted owl. Their plan
would involve substantial use of areas that are al-
ready protected - a “corridor” of parks runs right
through the birds’ British Columbia range - as well
as the huge public watersheds that provide drink-
ing water to Greater Vancouver and the wide-
spread areas that are inoperable or innaccessible
to loggers (the “working forest” takes up only
about a fifth of the land-base of the two timber
supply areas).

And lest you should think that this is nothing

more than a self-serv-

in a very big way, as
well.

Besides WCWC’s pe-
tition for judicial re-
view of the Chief
Forester’s Fraser-Soo
decision, the major
preservation groups are
pushing hard for feder-
al endangered species
legislation. As I noted

We in Canada are not
immune from some of the
processes that have
seriously tied up timber
in the United States

ing exercise by a pow-
erful licenseee with a
vested interest and lit-
tle else, the Interfor
proposal has won at
least cautious applause
from environmental sci-
entists such a Dr. Karl
Walters of the Universi-
ty of British Columbia.
This is not to say that

in my previous column,
Ottawa plans to bring legislation before the House
of Commons later this year.

Our union’s legal opinion, prepared by Banister
and Company of Vancouver, clearly shows that, as
currently proposed, Ottawa’s bill could allow most
of the same impositions on the forest industry that
have stymied timber harvest operations in the U.S.

Just like the U.S. Endangered Species Act, the
federal proposal requires the courts to take into
account little else than the needs of a species; no
need to consider jobs, no need to consider com-
munities; no need to consider alternatives that bal-
ance social, economic and environmental needs.

A broad coalition of forest industry, forest
worker, farm, ranching, community and hunting-
and-trapping organizations have pushed for
changes that would make the proposed bill more
responsive to workers’ and communities’ con-
cerns. But at the same time, green groups have
also been pushing for changes - changes in part
that would allow them even more wide-open ac-
cess to the courts.

Obviously, that sort of “citizen standing” to
bring legal challenges to species recovery plans
would do little for average citizens. But it would
vastly increase the power of well-heeled single-in-

terest groups bent on tying up the forest sector.

all resource conflicts
around the habitat needs of endangered species
can be readily or easily solved. It’s much more dif-
ficult, for instance, in cases like the fishery, where
potentially-endangered species not only depend on
the target resource for habitat, but actually are the
target resource.

Still it does lend at least some creedence to the
suggestion that “win-win” solutions are possible if
we simply look for them instead of deciding that
we're always faced with “either-or” choices.

Unfortunately, there are groups in our society
that can only flourish in a crisis atmosphere. If you
depend on constant financial appeals for your sur-
vival, it’s conceivable that more people will con-
tribute if they believe that if they don’t the world -
or the existence of some special species - is about
to end than if they think they are supporting some
kind of murky compromise.

Under these circumstances, we will likely see a
continued push for “either-or” solutions to land-
use conflicts: more one-sided legislation, more le-
gal actions.

I'm afraid we're going to find ourselves in court
again and again.

Kim Pollock is the Director of I.W.A. CANADA’s
Environment and Land-Use Department.

4/LUMBERWORKER/MARCH, 1996

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