CONVENTION

° Harry Bains

e Jack McLeman

More value added
needed says union

Union members in British Columbia are con-
cerned about tenure over the forest resource and
this year Local 1-80 sponsored a resolution that
says all tenures must be tied directly to existing
sawmill and remanufacturing jobs in the province
and that any lack of compliance must constitute
the immediate termination of tenure and/or licens-
es.
Harry Bains, of Local 1-217, says that Canadian
Forest Products is rethinking where it will ship its
logs on the coast and that future decisions will ef-
fect I.W.A. members at Eburne sawmill division in
Vancouver.

Brother Bains said that Eburne used to consume
over 1 million cubic meters of wood a year and
that today it only has access to half of that on an
annual basis while the company has doubled ship-
ments to its pulp interests in Howe Sound.

“We are told that Eburne today will have only 10
months supply of lumber or timber,” he said. “That
means we will be taking two months (of layoff)
every year because of lack of timber.”

Bains said there are enough logs to go around
but that the company is deliberately starving
Eburne in favour of the pulp operation.

Jack McLeman of Local 1-85 said that I.W.A. lo-
cals should be aware that the big companies try to

do what they want with their wood supply and”

that their actions can pit one local against another.

Loggers’ Local 1-71 President Darrel Wong told
the convention that mills in Terrace are running
short of logs while timber from the Nass Valley is
going to export.

He said that there is no commitment right now
under the Forest Act which ensures a level of em-
ployment for forest workers and their communities.

Mergers urged
Continued from page fifteen

all those other organizations because we are the
most democratic...”

Brother Haggard said that there must be a plan
that meets the needs of communities and that the
union must make its move soon.

Darrel Wong, President of Local 1-71, said that
the union has to carefully pick the sectors it wants
to organize and fully research them to “find out
what kind of financial stability it’s got, to make
sure that we know when we go in to organize that
company that...we organize it in every single oper-
ation that we have at the same time.”

Brother Wong said the union must not merge
with other unions just for the sake of merging but
maintain the integrity and identity of the organiza-
tion.

He said the union has got to get more informa-
tion out to the public and gave the Internet as an

example of how the I.W.A. can reach people
across the country.

Wong said the there needs to be some legisla-
tion that guarantees that it companies have access
to our fibre, the will create the maximum number
of jobs.

“I mean, you get to a point where you have a
TimberWest or a Fletcher Challenge that comes in
here and they buy it up and they they piecemeal it
all out to the lowest possible bidder with the least,
amount of employment,” he added. “We already
have a landlord, that the Province. We don’t need a
whole bunch of major forest companies giving
away our jobs, and that’s what they've been do-
ing.”

Dave Tones, President of Local 1-3567, said that
Category II sales favour non-union firms that can
high bid small business wood because they have
cheaper labour costs.

He said the system is “structured it so that
unionized remanufacturing plants are at a disad-
vantage and cannot get the timber that’s put there
available to the remanufacturing plants.”

Carmen Rocco, from Duncan Local 1-80, aa
rose in support of the resolution, saying that the
current sale of the TimberWest TFL on Vancouver
Island offers the union a chance to tell the goverm
ment that unless it ties the timber supply to plants,
there should be no sale. pare ~

Brother Rocco said the I.W.A. did just that te
eral years ago when Fletcher Challenge sold tl c
northern portion of TFL 46 and the union force’
them to hold on to the sawmill in Youbou. id

Gary Kobayashi, President of Local 217, sat d
that at one time the provincial Timber Act state
that the resources of the province were to be ust
to create jobs in the province but that successive
Social Credit governments destroyed that linkage.

He said that the current Liberal opposition party
were wholeheartedly supported by the forest com-
panies in the May 1996 provincial election. y

“They (the forest companies) knew that the Lib-
erals would let them shut down manufacturing
plants and still keep their tenures,” said Brother
Kobayashi.

EFAP system continues
to expand in Canada

National First Vice
President Neil Menard
informed convention
delegates that the Em-
ployee and Family As-
sistance Program is con-
tinuing to grow with an
increasing emphasis on
early intervention when
possible.

“It is obvious that
there is a growing need
for the services provid-
ed by our EFAP’s as we
face more stress in our
day-to-day. lives,” said
Brother Menard. “It is f
important that we pay more attention to preven-
tion and early intervention, rather than letting
things get out of control. We can all be proud of
the fact that our EFAP/ARS Model is really leading
the way when it comes to prevention.”

The union is involved in 20 Assessment and Re-
ferral Societies (ARS) across Canada that provide
services to 250,000 people involving 280 public
and private employers and 125 local unions.

Brother Menard, who is the national officer re-
sponsible for the EFAP, said that more communi-
ties are showing interest in the program while it is
expanding.

During the past year, 3 of 14 ARS’s expanded ac-
tivities in B.C. The Campbell River ARS on Van-
couver Island now includes Gold River and
Courtenay, opening satellite offices in both com-

© Ist V.P. Neil Menard

munities.

In the Lower Mainland the Vancouver ARS,
which now has three counselors, has opened satel-
lite offices in Abbotsford, Maple Ridge and
Squamish. The other area of expansion, said
Brother Menard, is the Thompson Nicola ARS,
which is situated in Kamloops. It has expanded
services from Armstrong in the north to Okanagan
Falls in the south.

In Alberta, the union is working to bring the
EFAP model from the West Yellowhead ARS to
Slave Lake and Drayton Valley, which are both
I.W.A. communities. In Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan,
the Saskfor-MacMillan Partnership has recommit-
ted itself to the model. Some EFAP enhancement
work has been done at the Weyerhaeuser mill in
Big River.

In October of this year Brother Menard and Jim
Stimson of MacMillan Bloedel joined with Ken
Hamm of Repap in The Pas, Manitoba, to do a
community presentation which resulted in some
new members signing up.

A new ARS (Timiskaming District ARS) opened
up in Englehart, Ontario and is fully operational in
Local 1-2995, covering the communities of Kirk-
land Lake, New Liskheard, Hailebury, Cobalt and
Englehart. The local union is involved with the
Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union,
the United Steelworkers of America and Ontario
health care unions. Brother Norm Rivard played a
key role in supporting the ARS.

In the northern Ontario community of Hearst,
Local 2995’s Damien Roy is searching for ways to
bring EFAP services to the community. At the
Spruce Falls mill in Kapuskasing, EFAP represen-
tatives have received training in the past year.

In Local 1000 two other ARS’s have grown in the
communities of North Bay and Pembroke.

EE

Policy and action
resolutions passed

INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY FUND — the I.W.A. will
establish an international trade union solidarity
fund to further its its involvement in international
solidarity activities.

SUPPORT FOR NEW DEMOCRATS - I.W.A. CANADA
will redouble its efforts to elect and re-elect New
Democratic Party governments. All union locals
are urged to affiliate themselves to the NDP.

SINGLE ISSUE GROUPS IN NDP - the convention
urges all union members to become active in the
NDP to ensure that the party continues to repre-
sent all sectors of society. All LW.A. local unions
are urged to join and members are encouraged to
seek NDP nomination for political office.

LEGAL COSTS - the I.W.A. National Executive
Board will strike a sub-committee to investigate
ways and means of reducing legal costs to local
unions and will report its findings to the next con-
vention.

NATIONAL STAFF CONFERENCE — In 1997 the union

will hold its second annual conference for officers
and staff.

NON-UNION CONTRACTORS - the union will imple-
ment and enforce a policy that any company or
person having direct business dealings with I.W.A.
certified operations, be a legitimate union recog-
nized by an appropriate provincial federation of
labour.

FUTURE GROWTH OF UNION — to become a stronger
and more significant organization, the union lead-
ership will follow a resolution to develop a pro-

gram to organize workers and explore merger op-
portunities with other unions.

JOB EVALUATIONS — the union will distribute infor-
mation on how production jobs are evaluated to
determine pay and job descriptions.

INFO ON OVERTIME — the national union will imple-
ment a campaign to educate the I.W.A. member-
ship on the negative impacts of working overtime.

OVERTIME AND UNEMPLOYMENT — the convention
adopted a resolution to prevent overtime by get-
ting provincial and federal labour boards to issue
permits, agreed to by the union involved, before
an employer is permitted to schedule the over-
time.

SHORTER WORK WEEK — the union will prepare and
distribute educational material outlining the ad-
vantages of a shorter work week with the same
take home pay.

LAY-OFF NOTICES — the union demands that all gov-
erments legislate requirement that employees be
given notices two week prior to a lay-off.

LONG TERM DISABILITY — the convention demanded
that LTD policy be reviewed to ensure early evalu-
ation and that LTD staff doing the evaluations be
trained to understand the many problems that dis-

abled members face with their disabilit A
education levels. wise

EFAP POLICY — the I.W.A. will endeavor to have all
employers fund Assessment and Referral Services
on a global funding basis.

PAID EDUCATIONAL LEAVE POLICY — the convention
directed the union to develop a comprehensive
Paid Education Leave policy which will enhance

trade union education opportunities for LW.A.
members.

UL. “FIGHT BACK” COMMITTEE - the union will form

a committee to fight against the Federal govern-

ment’s tampering with unemployment insurance.

Representation will be made to provincial federa-

Hons of labour and the C.L.C. to form a united
ont.

a

16/LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1996