PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE New persectives come from visit to Europe by Gerry Stoney Nhere is an on-going debate within the labour movement about how unions should organize themselves to deal with increasingly international issues. Whether it is technological change or the push of global economic forces, workers and workplaces are subject to in- creasingly rapid and unforgiving change. The forest industry in Canada has been at the front-end of this kind of economic up- heaval. We have always been vulnerable. When Reaganomics took hold in the early 80's, for example, our membership felt the pinch first and hardest. More recently, additional stresses have come from the on-two punch of trade agree- ments and shifts on capital. International trade pressures are being used increasingly to dictate what gets made and by whom. And as the flow of international capital becomes sub- ject to less and less national regulation or re- straint, the ability of local governments to im- pose meaningful commitments on large multi-nationals is substantially reduced. It is against this backdrop that the I.W.A. has begun to reconsider how it can respond more effectively at an international level. Pri- or to 1987, we viewed internation- al issues as some- thing that our office in Portland was re- sponsible for. When. that office was elim- inated by the forma- tion of two national unions, we had to address the interna- tional issue from a Canadian perspec- tive. We did that by af- filiating with the twelve million member Interna- tional Federation of Building and Wood Workers, a Geneva- based federation that includes wood working unions from around the world. Our involvement with the IFBWW has been growing since then in rough parallel with the emergence of increasingly complex international issues. When Canadian forest management and for- est practices moved into the spotlight of pub- lic attention internationally in the early 1990's, we saw the need to mobilize a trade union perspective and response to these is- sues. We moved in various ways; first, by pressing for and participating in processes that would lead to legitimate measures of sus- tainable forestry. At a second level, we began to contact and inform other trade unionists about the work that we were doing on the question of sustainability. In September of this year we organized a group of four local union presidents to meet with and discuss forestry issues with the European affiliates of the IFBWW. The meet- ings were scheduled over a five-day period and involved travel to Amsterdam, Brussels and London. While we were suc- cessful in building a base and _ network within the European affiliates, we also had an enormous opportu- nity to see how effec- tive European unions were on a wide range of workplace and social issues. It was clear to all of the I.W.A. delegates that when trade unions are accepted as legitimate “social part- ners” as they are in Europe, the effectiveness and relevence of trade unionism increases dramatically. It was also clear that the inclusion of trade unions in the economic and social fabric of the European economy was the direct result of effective political action by those same unions. Successive elections of labour-sup- ported governments at the national and local levels have ensured that trade unions have a distinct and recognized voice in the manage- ment of their economy. That experience must have application in Canada and our union must push to ensure it becomes a reality sooner rather than later. LANDS AND FORESTS Beware of misleading atiack on job numbers by Kim Pollock ecently the green movement has launched an attack on the economic con- / j tribution of the forest industry. You might remember that a couple of years ago I reported that a coalition of L -\ B.C. greens had been heavily funded by US. private foundations. Part of their pitch was that they needed the mon- ey to undermine arguments about the forest sec- tor’s ability to support jobs. That's why the Vancouver-based David Suzuki Foundation recently commissioned a study to show the alleged minor role the forest sector plays in the economy. That’s also why environmentalists at the recent World Commission on Forestry and Sustainable Development hearings in Winnipeg selectively used that report to attach Canada’s forest industry. And it’s also likely why University of B.C. acade- mic Pat Marchak used the Winnipeg session to make some spectacular claims about jobs in the forest sector. Marchak claimed the forest sector is steadily los- ing jobs and she cited tech change as the villian. Of course, these claims are wrong. As the most recent edition of the federal govern- ment’s report “The State of Canada’s Forests” points out, direct employment in the forest sector reached 369,000 in 1995, up by 3.1 percent over 1994 and up by an average of 2 percent per year for the past 10 years. Moreover, in terms of impact on the Canadian economy, forest products exports totalled $32.4 billion in 1994, a 21.5 percent increase over the pre- vious year. Forest products made a positive contri- bution of $27.3 billion to Canada’s balance of trade: “During the past 10 years, Canada’s net exports-of forest products have been critical to its ability to maintain a positive trade balance, particularly dur- ing a global recession,” the federal report notes, adding that “in the absense of net exports of these products, a $4.5 billion deficit would have been recorded in Canada’s balance of trade in 1994.” In other words, it’s forest products exports that allow Canada to pay it’s way in the world. Marchak must have been kidding when she suggested we might replace them by raising crabs and cranber- Ties. So exports are up, jobs are up. What about the environment? The areas seeded and replanted in Canada in- creased by 7.9 percent during 1994, to a total of 487,840 hectares; over 10 years the average annual increase has been 6.4 per- cent. Over the past 15 years, the volume of trees on commercial forest lands in Canada grew by 4 per- cent, the federal report shows. While the average an- nual harvest was 163 million cubic metres, the vol- ume of wood at the seedling stage increased by 140 million cubic metres. While the volume in “young forest stage” decreased fully two-thirds of the wealth generated is captured by labour. That’s the share that I.W.A. CANADA and other forest union members get because they work hard at dangerous jobs and because they're not afraid to back it up on the picket line. You should feel proud and Vicki should be thankful: It’s also the share that buys groceries, sends kinds to school, pays taxes, allows folks to retire with digni- ty...and allows us the luxury of making good envi- ronmental decisions. Both historically and interna- tionally, people typically make poor environmental decisions when they themselves are poor; those good-paying jobs and strong exports make possible the Forest Practices Code, Protect Areas Strategy and other forest environmental efforts. Every year between 1982 and 1993, Heaps and Schwindt note, “labour received the largest share. At the bottom of the recession in 1982, only labour received a positive return. Furthermore its returns have been stable...” by 210 million cubic me- tres, the volume in “old or mixed-age” forests in- creased by over 1 bil- lion, indicating the growth of regenerated forests. The area at the Greens are trying to mislead the public about the economic So by far the biggest share of forest wealth goes not to greedy rob- ber barons, but to many thousands of people who work hard in the forest industry and seedling stage increased = 5 make a decent living. by5.8 million hectares,a_ YNPOTTANCE of the country S$ Husband also repeat- 15-year increase of 20 fe t 5 t ed Marchak’s claim that. percent. ores indus jobs are vanishing Over a third of the ar- vy due to technological eas harvested were re- change. Again, that’s planted or reseeded; the rest was left to naturally regenerate. On the nega- tive side of the ledger, there was over a million hectares not growing commercial species 10 years after harvest, even though over 4.8 million hectares were planted or seeded during the past 15 years. Worried about old-growth? Canada’s more than 234,000 hectare commercial forest includes over 44 percent that is “old, mature or mixed-age.” Meanwhile, greens are using the Suzuki Founda- tion report to “prove” the unimportance of the for- est sector to our economy. Vicki Husband of the Sierra Club, for instance jumped on the report by B.C. economists Richard Schwindt and Terry Heaps, trumpeting its conclusion that the forest sector is responsible for “only” 7.9 percent of B.C.’s gross domestic product, roughly it’s economic out- put, and “only” 6.1 percent of employment in 1993. Forgotten: Heaps and Schwindt refused to calcu- late the “multiplier” effect of forest sector spend- ing, which according to auditors Price Waterhouse adds some 195,000 “indirect” jobs to the 97,500 “di- rect” jobs in the industry. The federal study indi- cates that one job out of every nine in B.C. is for- est-based, one in sixteen for Canada. Forgotten: Heaps and Schwindt did show that 2 selective. Remember, back when there was large-scale introduction of new technology, especially in the sawmill sector, tech change saved as many jobs as it eliminated. That’s because new technology allowed efficient mills to continue to operate, even in the teeth of a severe recession. The B.C. Interior, for instance, had the most highly mechanized and modern sawmills in the world when the recession of the 1980s hit. As a re- sult, the region actually increased its market share, outperforming and stealing markets even from low-wage competitors like the U.S. South between 1978 and 1984, even though Interior wages in- creased by 60 percent U.S. over the same period. At the same time, the plywood industry lost some 4000 jobs, largely because industry failed to implement new technology to offset U.S. competi- tion and protectionism. Far be it from me to knock job creation. But it’s short-sighted and two-faced to cluck about tech change job-loss but still support measures that would sharply reduce harvest levels. Kim Pollock is the Director of I.W.A. CANADA’s Environment and Land-Use Department. aS SS 4/LUMBERWORKER/NOVEMBER, 1996