After a fast paced and hard fought
provincial campaign which ended
with an historic second term for Glen
Clark’s B.C. New Democrats, the at-
tention in B.C. has turned to the Legis-
lature. With a new Cabinet appointed
in early June, Premier Clark re-con-
vened the Legislature on June 25 and
began to move forward his govern-
ment’s new agenda.

In the early weeks of the session,
forest sector issues held a low profile
compared to the interest and atten-
tion that was being devoted to issues
like the provincial budget and the po-
tential of projected deficits. Despite
that low profile, a number of new
pieces of legislation were introduced
that will have a major impact on the
province’s forest sector.

Of particular interest to I.W.A.
members was the passage of Bill 7,
the Forest Statutes Amendment Act.
This piece of legislation provides the
government with the legal mecha-
nisms to translate intensive forest
management activity into actual in-
creases in the annual allowable cut to
which a forest license holder has ac-
cess.

Prior to the introduction of this leg-
islation, talk of increasing the annual
allowable cut in an area was more
theoretical than real. Although
foresters often debated the impact
that various intensive forest manage-
ment prescriptions such as thinning,
spacing or fertilizing had on the pro-
ductivity of the forest resource, there
was very little that connected that de-
bate to specific measures to increase
harvest levels within an area where in-
tensive forestry was being practiced.

B.C. government moves t
improve intensive forestry

Under this new legislation, regional
managers within a defined forest re-
gion, now have the ability to increase
the annual allowable cut of a license.
Implementing the increase requires
that the license holder enters into an
agreement with the Minister that
demonstrates how innovative forestry
practices improve the productivity of
the forest resource.

The key to this new legislation is
the agreement between the Minister
and the licensee. Rather than have a
situation where the licensee would
have to negotiate first with a district
manager, then a regional manager, the
new amendments provide a more ex-
pedited system.

The new legislation spells out the
form and content that must be includ-
ed in each agreement. Regardless of
the term of the existing license agree-
ment, for example, the term of the
new agreement cannot exceed fifteen
years. The agreement must also be
consistent with the provisions and
regulations of the Forest Practices
Code.

A critical element in establishing
these new agreements is the develop-
ment and approval of a detailed
forestry plan by the licensee. This
plan must include descriptive infor-
mation on the area where the new
agreement will apply, the schedule for
implementing the new forestry prac-
tices and how the use and implemen-
tation of this forestry plan will in-
crease the productivity of the forest
land base that is being targeted for
this innovative activity.

Not surprisingly, the Liberal Oppo-
sition had little to offer in the way of

° Intensive silviculture activity such a pruning may result in higher annual al-
lowable cuts on public lands.

debate or comment when Bill 7 was
introduced. Even during the provin-
cial election campaign, the Liberal po-
sition on forestry was, at best unclear,
but more often veered from one con-
tradiction to another.

The most heated criticism of the
new legislation came from the envi-
ronmental movement. For them, any
reference to possible increases in an-
nual allowable cuts, regardless of the
role that intensive forest management
activity had in supporting those in-
creases, were unacceptable. If nothing
else, the response by environmental-
ists only reinforces the view that their
long term objective is not reforming

the forest industry, but eliminating it.
For its part, the provincial govern-
ment countered that the new legisla-
tion was part of a broader commit-
ment to ensure that changes in
industry performance in areas like
forest practices and intensive forest
management were reflected in
changes in harvest levels. For wood-
workers, this commitment represents
a major opportunity to translate activ-
ity and effort in the management of
the forest resource into stable and
growing employment throughout the
entire sector.
- Phillip Legg, Assistant Research
Director

Proposed plan gets examined
for southwest of province

After months of negotiations, a pro-
tected areas plan for the Lower Main-
land has been sent to the B.C. Cabinet.

Now it’s up to the politicians to de-
cide on a consensus plan for new
parks in southwestern B.C.

If accepted by the province’s New
Democratic Party government, the
plan will create 24 new parks, to-
talling about 140,000 hectares and
bring the Lower Mainland’s total pro-
tected areas to about 14 percent of its
land mass.

The province's Regional Public Ad-
visory Committee, which included en-
vironmental groups, community, for-
est industry, small business, local
government, mining, outdoor recre-
ation and government representatives,
as well as I.W.A. CANADA, also rec-
ommended a number of measures
that would offset the timber and em-
ployment impacts of the plan.

“We didn’t get everything we want-
ed in these negotiations,” says I.W.A.
National Third Vice President Warren.
Ulley. “But on balance we got a plan
that wood workers and their commu-
nities would be able to live with.”

Included in measures intended to
offset the proposed plan’s estimated
106,000 cubic metre impact on the re-
gion’s annual allowable cut are:

e return of areas “clawed back” from
the former Weldwood Canada Ltd.,
Tree Farm Licence 38 when it was
purchased by International Forest
Products Ltd, in 1994;

¢ relaxation of harvest guidelines and
visual quality objectives to increase
available timber;

¢ creation of a $5 million fund to as-
sist forest workers in retraining and
creation of new forest sector jobs;

° finalization of preservation plans
for the northern spotted owl.

“We believe that this package, taken
as a whole, would mean very little dis-

ruption of forest workers’ jobs and
communities,” says Ulley. “That was
our objective in this process.”

Ulley noted that the I.W.A. expects
that the involvement in the RPAC of
important environmental groups like
the umbrella organization B.C. Wild
and Canadian Parks and Wilderness
Society, as well as recreation and out-
doors groups, signals the end of any
“war in the woods” in the Lower Main-
land region.

e Warren Ulley, Third National V.P.

“Those organizations have had their
opportunity now to expand the parks
network in this area. They got a lot of
what they wanted, although they cer-
tainly didn’t everything,” added the
national union third vice-president.

During the process, Ulley noted, he
was often “pleasantly surprised” at
the willingness of some environmen-
talists to compromise and to respond
favourably to I.W.A.’s concerns for
employment.”

Meanwhile Ulley called “nothing
but hot air” recent criticism of the
agreement by non-participants like
the Western Canada Wilderness Com-
mittee.

“They chose not to take part in the
process, so’ now it’s easy for them to
sit back and throw rocks at it. It’s a lot
harder to sit down at a map and try to
find proposals that everyone can
agree to,” he pointed out.

Ulley stressed that it’s important
that Cabinet accept the recommenda-
tions as a package.

“This is a fragile compromise. The
politicians would be unwise to pick
out some parts, for instance the pro-
tected areas map, and ignore others,
such as the mitigation and transition
parts that help offset the timber and
jobs impact,” he said.

- Kim Pollock, Director of Envi-
ronment and Land-use

[.W.A. and FIR agree to
protocol agreement in °97

Forest Industrial Relations Limited
(FIR), the employers’ association for
bargaining in B.C.’s Coast forest in-
dustry, tentatively agreed to a proto-
col for 1997 negotiations. FIR agreed
with the I.W.A. Provincial Negotiating
Committee’s final proposal at a meet-
ing of its Board on Friday, August 30,
1996. The agreement comes after two
months of intensive discussions be-
tween the Provincial Negotiating
Committee and FIR.

The protocol is a positive step in
terms of preserving industry bargain-
ing in the Coast forest industry, the fu-
ture of which was called into question
when MacMillan Bloedel decided to
deaccredit from the employers’ asso-
ciation earlier this year.

The protocol agreement essentially
outlines how the parties will conduct
themselves during negotiations. It has
two main components.

First, all the accredited FIR compa-
nies and the six I.W.A. Coast Local
Unions are “locked in” for the entire
1997 negotiations. This means there
can be no selective strikes or lock-
outs while main table bargaining is go-
ing on. Any dispute in 1997 will, at a
minimum, involve all FIR member
companies and the 6 Coast Locals.

Second, the protocol provides for a
mechanism to deal with operation-
specific (local) issues that cannot be
dealt with under the Coast Master
Agreement (i.e., issues that are not ap-

propriate for the grievance proce-
dure). These issues are limited to one
Local Union and one company and do
not get resolved adequately at main
table negotiations. The protocol
agreement allows for a period of time
to deal with local issues and a number
of options for resolving them, ranging
from settlement to a final recom-
mended resolution by a third party.

The idea of a protocol agreement is
not new. From 1975 to 1986 there was
a protocol in place which was very
similar to the one recently negotiated.
Following 1994 negotiations, interest
in such an agreement resurfaced. This
interest intensified on both sides
when MB made the decision to deac-
credit from FIR.

The protocol agreement will apply
to all companies who remain accredit-
ed to FIR. It will not apply to MacMil-
lan Bloedel unless they apply to the
Labour Relations Board to have their
accreditation reinstated.

This agreement puts the I.W.A. in a
good position to negotiate with FIR
and isolate MB in order to preserve
common, industry-wide wages and
working conditions and it sends a def-
inite message to all forest products
companies that the I.W.A. is commit-
ted to, and will fight to protect, asso-
ciation bargaining in the B.C. forest
industry.

- Scott Lunny, National Represen-
tative

LUMBERWORKER/SEPTEMBER 1996/3