LL a West Coast loggers initiate skills centre following massive layoffs due to Clayoquot Sound decisions “SKILLS CENTRE Dalit Ahan anaes ¢ Some members of the MacMillan Bloedel and Aliford Bay logging crew pose for photo in front of the Whale’s Tale Skills Centre. Workers have taken the lead in ensuring that government will live up to its commitments. f you look around the province of British Columbia you will probably not find a group of workers who have had a rougher time of it over the past five years than 1.W.A. loggers from the Clayoquot Sound region. Government decisions to pare down logging operations in the Clayoquot Sound to a bare minimum have resulted in serious levels of job loss for Local 1-85 members working for both MacMillan Bloedel and International For- est Products. Over the past five years, the annual allowable cut from the Clayoquot Sound region has gone from about 900,000 cubic meters a year to today’s cut rate of less than 150,000 cubic meters or less. The provincial government, following a decision to cut the annual cut to about 500,000 cubic meters in 1993, changed that decision last year. The government accepted all the recommenda- tions of a scientific panel headed by University of British Columbia Forest Professor Fred Bunnel which is seeing a drastic downfall in the annual al- lowable cut. Not even Professor Bunnel recommended that all of the scientific panel’s recommendations should be put in at once. But they have been, and that has meant big time job loss. In 1990 there were about 175 loggers on the se- niority list at MacMillan Bloedel’s Kennedy Lake logging division. By next year it is estimated’ that there may be about 40 loggers employed. Current- ly the crew is experiencing a downsizing from about 90 workers to 40 - 45. That’s another major hit. The NDP government has made some clear commitments to workers. Ex-Premier Mike Har- court swore that all workers affected by land-use decisions would be taken care of. Jobs would be found for them, said Harcourt. Before the provincial election in late May of this year, Andrew Petter, former Minister of Forests and now Minister of Finance, said that the govern- ment would assure that all displaced forest work- ers would be looked after. The government promised that Forest Renewal B.C. (FRBC) the crown corporation founded in April of 1994, would see to it that workers affected would be retrained and put back to work restoring the forests. But since its inception, FRBC has been experi- encing growing pains and complex approval pro- cedures. Jobs have not been coming like it was thought they would. So the unionized workers in Clayoquot Sound realized that they would have to be the ones taking proactive measures to avoid being thrown on the scrap heap of unemployment insurance and wel- fare rolls. The workers themselves have gotten together, along with local union and community support, to establish a skills training centre in the West Van- couver Island coastal community of Ucluelet. Today I.W.A. members are proud to be the ones running the Whale’s Tale Skills Centre, which is a career counselling and training liasion facility staffed by ex-loggers and professionals they have hired. The centre is supported by I.W.A. Local 1-85 President Dave Haggard, who has been’a member of the FRBC Board of Directors since its inception in 1994. He says that the centre is essential to maintain a level of community stability. “The government has made some serious deci- sion which have affected our members and the community,” says Brother Haggard. “The very least the government can do is live up to its well- documented commitments to the forest workers who have been thrown out of work by decisions affecting logging in the Clayoquot Sound.” Larry Rewakowsky, First Vice President of the local union, says that if it wasn’t for the Whale’s tumed to Victoria because it was not being spent. The L.W.A. could see an immediate need and the spectre of even more layoffs in the future. “It was expected that the large forest industry companies would submit proposals for FRBC funding,” says Clive Pemberton, one of the Whale’s Tale Directors and a forestry crewman at Kennedy Lake division. “But the MacMillan Bloedels of the world don’t really support FRBC. They believe that there is no long-term gain in it for them and that involvement only adds to their administrative costs.” So the workers had to get the ball rolling them- selves. In March of 1995 local union activists put in an application for a community coordinator po- sition that would be FRBC funded. Two I.W.A. people were initiallly hired to work on FRBC pro- posals for the area. In late May of this year, FRBC alloted about $2.4 million for wage reimburse- ments and the skills centre. And then suddenly, at the end of June, an FRBC bureaucrat visited the skills centre and said that funding was being Tale Centre, remaining I.W.A. members would be on the street, rather than living on reduced wage supplements. Brother Rewakowsky says the whole process of getting the centre up and running has been made more difficult be- cause FRBC does not have a plan to pick up workers that lose their jobs due to government decisions. “Tt seems like the goal posts change every time you go to them,” he says. The NDP has made some clear commitments to workers displaced by government decisions. The ILW.A. has vowed to make the government good on tts promises of retraining and new employment. eliminated for any of the training projects that could not be tied to for- est renewal work. After a storm of protests and a subse- quent meeting of the FRBC Board of Direc- tors, funding for the skills centre and training was restored with a commitment to keep it in place until the end of 1996. UNIQUE TRAINING COURSES The Whale’s Tale training centre sits in an old restaurant facility on “What is needed is some commitment from FRBC to proper planning in picking up workers and pay- ing their wages and benefits. Our members on the West Coast have had to struggle every step of the way in getting what inconsistent help they have re- ceived from FRBC to date.” PROCESS BEGAN IN 1994 The realization that workers needed to take con- trol of their own destiny began taking on an ap- pearance in November of 1994 when an Interna- tional Forest Products contract crew (Aliford Bay Logging) was laid off for lack of available wood supply. Workers had heard about the FRBC program and did some checking around. They were sur- prised that, in 1994, about $1 million in FRBC funding for the Clayoquot Sound area had been re- the main drag in Ucluelet. There’s noth- ing fancy about it but it does the job. Most importantly the workers in the Clayoquot Sound have been fully involved in how the centre has been set up. They are the ones who were be- hind establishing over 30 training courses along with career counselling services. Some of the crew dropped out of high school 20- 30 years ago, so they are being encouraged to get their academic upgrading. There are also basic and advanced computer skills courses offered right on the site. S Bill Weber, Coordinator at the centre, is one of two current full-time I.W.A. staffers on the job, along Registrar Al Gudbranson. : Brother Weber, who felled timber until 1992 Continued on next page a 10/LUMBERWORKER/SEPTEMBER, 1996