e At the Columbia Forest Products plywood plant in Rutherglen, Ontario is Local 1000 member Caroline Cote, a bunch

clipper operator.

One of the forest industry opera-
tions dotting the landscape in I.W.A.
CANADA Local 1000's boundaries is
the Columbia Forest Products veneer
plant in the community of Rutherglen,
Ontario. For over 25 years the union
has represented workers at the plant,
first owned by G.W. Martin and
presently owned by Columbia since
1989.

It’s a fair sized operation with 240
1.W.A. members on the seniority list,
some with 25-35 years seniority.

“It is one of those operations that
we have been very fortunate to have
in our local union over the years,”
says Local 1000 President Joe da Cos-
ta. “The plant has been a steady em-
ployer of our members and has kept
people employed, even through some
pretty rough times.”

Columbia Forest Products is an
American owned company with other
veneer mills in Presque Isle, Maine;
Newport, Vermont; and New Free-
dom, West Virginia. It also has four
plywood plants, two on the eastern
seaboard and two on the western
seaboards of the United States. About
70% of the Rutherglen plant’s produc-
tion goes to the plywood plants in the
United States.

“Columbia is a company that really
knows veneer,” says Brother da Cos-
ta. “That is important because this is a
very competitive business to deal in.”

The company sources its timber
from various regions including north-

em Ontario (as far west as the Rainy
River area on the Ontario-Manitoba
border), New York state, Pennsylva-
nia and Michigan.

The main hardwood species
processed in the Rutherglen plant are
white birch, yellow birch, and maple.
Some oak and other hardwood
species are also peeled and clipped.

Brian Geddes, Supervisor of the dry
end at the plant, says that the plant
consumes the equivalent of about
165,000 - 175,000 board feet of logs
per week. The plant operates on three
shifts, five days a week.

Fine grade veneers are peeled at
thicknesses down to 1/34” and the

logs are taken down to 4-1/4” cores. °

Highest grade veneers are saved.for
the outer skins and lower grades go
for panel core stock. The company re-
jects whole logs for firewood if they
don’t meet standards.

Mr. Geddes says that computer pro-
grams are used to detect expected ve-
neer volume returns from a given log
supply.

“If we’re off, then we can come
back and look at problems right away,
as opposed to finding out at the end of
the week or a work period,” he says.

The veneer is clipped right after it
comes off the lathe cylinder where de-
fects will show up on the ribbon of ve-
neer in the same place. From there it
enters the drying cycle where it is
treated for about 50-53 seconds. Each
section of the dryer puts out a differ-

ent heat level which ramps down from
front to back.

The veneer slices are stacked 16
high before hitting trimming knives. A
computer program is used to clip the
veneers according to best current
market values that maximize yield.
There are about 40 different varia-
tions in the system.

Workers go non-stop all day, so
they have gotten together to make
time go smoother. That has included
agreements to change jobs between
clippers and pilers.

Tailers have also found that chang-
ing jobs has been good because they
are not pulling wood all shift long.

“When some people pile veneer all
day they have legitimate complaints
about getting sore shoulders, wrist and
back problems,” says Martha Ulch,
union chairperson in the operation and
a Local 1000 Executive Board member.
“Most of the members have agreed to
rotate with each other for 1-2 hours pe-
riods. By doing so we have done a lot
to cut down on injuries, relieve monot-
ony, and make the day go faster.”

The base rate in the plant is
$11.28/hr. for clean up hands while
the top paying job is plant electrician
at $18.68 - $19.71/hr. Benefits include
medical, dental, vision care, drug pre-
scriptions, and a life insurance plan. A
new registered retirement savings
plan has also been initiated.

Labour relations in the plant are
generally good, says Sister Ulch.

° At the splicer operator stations, sub-local chairperson and Local 1000 Executive Board member Martha Ulch (left) and
sub-local secretary treasurer Bonnie Wills pose for photo.

“The union and management get
along fine,” she says. “Sometimes we
have problems which we try to solve
as soon as possible. In general we are
starting to be on better terms with
management than we used to be.”

The current three year contract will
expire in October of 1997. Obviously,
the workers are not going to reveal
their bargaining demands until next
year, although Sister Ulch says there
are some problems occurring over job
postings.

“We thought we had fixed it (the
problem) with the last contract but
there seems to be a little gray area that
we can’t seem to work out,” she adds.

In addition to the regular full-time
employees, the company does have a
list of full-time “call-in” workers who
work their way up to permanent sta-
tus if other people retire or leave the
job. Summer students are hired as
well, on a full-time basis.

Lower Mainland
parks announced

The B.C. government has accepted
a multi-stakeholder group's consensus
recommendations on a parks plan for
the B.C. Lower Mainland.

The provincial Cabinet announced
on October 26 that it will accept all
the recommendations of the Lower
Mainland Regional Public Advisory
Committee and that this brings to a
close the process of designating pro-
tected areas for the region.

“We are pleased by the govern-
ment’s decision,” says I.W.A. CANA-
DA Third Vice-President Warren Ul-
ley, who represented forest workers
on behalf of the National Office and
Locals 1-71, 1-217 and 1-3567.

“This is not a perfect deal, but it is
one that on the whole, we can live
with. Even though there will be im-
pacts on the annual allowable cut and
therefore on our members’ jobs, the

package includes significant measures
to offset them.”

The RPAC’s recommendations in-
clude an increase of some 23 new pro-
tected areas totalling 138,000 hec-
tares, bringing the total protected to
about 14 percent of the total land
mass of the region.

However, because much of the area
included in the new parks is rock, ice
or inaccessible to logging, timber im-
pacts will be only about 2.4 percent of
the current annual allowable cut, ac-
cording to a socio-economic study
compiled for the RPAC.

In addition “mitigative” measures to
offset those impacts include:

° a return to the company of har-
vest rights “clawed back” from Inter-
national Forest Products Limited
when it bought the former license of
Weldwood of Canada Limited in Tree
Farm Licence 38 near Squamish;

e relaxation of visual quality objec-
tives and other timber harvesting con-
straints;

° offset of the impact of a new park
in the Mahatl valley by return of lands
that are currently within spotted owl
conservation areas.

As well, a dedicated “transitional”
fund of at least $5 million will be es-
tablished to provide new forest-sector
opportunities for any forest workers
displaced by the plan.

“We did our best to push the parks
away from the roughly 20 percent of
the land-base that we operate on,” Ul-
ley notes.

Still to come under the plan are fi-
nalization of measures to balance tim-
ber harvesting with protection of
northern spotted owls in the Fraser
and Soo Timber Supply Areas. As
well, there will be Local Resource
Management Planning tables for each
of the Sunshine Coast, Chilliwack and
Squamish-Whistler regions.

A transitional agency will be creat-
ed to oversee the transitional fund
and a four-member committee drawn
from among RPAC members will fi-
nalize formal mapping of protected
area boundaries.

- Kim Pollock

LUMBERWORKER/NOVEMBER 1996/11