New and Evolving work program takes
root at TimberWest’s Honeymoon Bay

In the last issue of the Lumber-
worker, [.W.A. National Representa-
tive Scott Lunny wrote a general
overview on the New and Evolving
Work (N.E.W.) agreement on the B.C.
coast. Below is a more detailed look
at the N.E.W. program at Timber-
West’s Honeymoon Bay Division,
which has become the standard bear-
er for the industry.

ne of the major topics to
be discussed during
1997 negotiations in
British Columbia will be
the issue of New and
Evolving Work (N.E.W.)
and whether or not the agreement be-
tween I.W.A. CANADA and the forest
industry has worked since the Master
Agreement was signed in 1994.

‘There is no doubt that the whole is-
sue of N.E.W. will be a hot topic of de-
bate at the bargaining table. The for-
est industry and the union signed the
agreement with the expressed intent
of having a process where both sides
can sit down and identify new work
opportunities in forestry operations.
To date the results have been mixed
at best.

Since the signing of that agreement,
the LW.A. and Forest Industrial Rela-
tions (F.I.R.) have worked hard to get
the whole concept of N.E.W. into mo-
tion. Both sides have concentrated
much of their efforts at TimberWest’s
Honeymoon Bay Division in Local 1-
80 on Vancouver Island.

After kicking-off the program in the
Spring of last year, the N.E.W. has had
its successes so far. One of the early
problems was just finding out what
the whole N.E.W. agreement concept
meant.

“At first we didn’t know what it
(N.E.W.) all really meant,” says Pat
Kinney, sub-local chairman at Honey-
moon Bay and a Local 1-80 Executive
Board member. “It was pretty air-fairy
type of stuff and there were no
ground rules at the start.”

Brother Kinney says that many
union members, who voted for N.E.W.
as part of the 1994 settlement, are still
unaware of what it all means.

“In the past we have always had
ideas of where to create new union
jobs but we didn’t have a system
where we could actually do some-
thing about it,” says Brother Kinney.
“There was no process to go to. So we
knew we had to have something bet-
ter.”

In May of 1995 the Honeymoon Bay
Division formed a joint union-manage-
ment N.E.W. committee with the out-

side assistance of the I.W.A.’s Nation-
al Secretary-Treasurer Terry Smith,
National I.W.A. Representative Scott
Lunny, F.LR. Representative Ross
Stryvoke and Chris Luke of the West-
ern Wood Products Forum.

Today the union side of the commit-
tee has Brother Kinney, faller Brent
Roland, forestry crewman Rolly Auger
and mechanic Tony Steeves on it. The
TimberWest side includes Divisional
Manager Bob Beard and N.E.W. coor-
dinator Don Gill.

Since the formation of the N.E.W.
committee, the unionized workforce
pee grown from 150 workers to over

20.

PREVENTION OF CONTRACTING
OUT CONFLICTS

Some of the new bargaining unit
jobs are attributable to the N.E.W.
process which, for the union’s sake,
has prevented the company from hir-
ing contractors.

Local 1-80 First Vice President and
Business Agent Carmen Rocco says
that the union has said to the compa-
ny that “whatever work you need
done in the division, can be done by
unionized company employees and
not contractors.”

“We have to look at new jobs that
clearly may have developed into bat-
tles over contracting out and have
solved them through the N.E.W.
process,” says Brother Rocco. “The
whole process has allowed the com-
pany to open up the books to us, and
see that in most instances, our compa-
ny crew can do the job better and
more efficiently than outside contrac-
tors can.”

With new logging guidelines intro-
duced by the Forest Practices Code,
TimberWest has put two new long-
line steel spars to work in Honey-
moon Bay. That has created up to 19
new jobs, all within the I.W.A. bar-
gaining unit.

The union is encouraged that larger
logging crews will most likely be
needed in the years ahead to comply
with some provisions of the Code,
which call for less road building and
site degradation.

“Any work that has been tradition-
ally done by us and that has not been
done in the recent past is up for talks
under N.E.W., in addition to new jobs
that both sides can mutually agree
on,” says Kinney. “We don’t want any
new jobs to be done by workers out-
side of the parent company crew if
this can be prevented. If TimberWest
wants to buy or lease equipment or

award work to a contractor, those
jobs should first be offered to union-
ized company workers.”

CREW CONSULTED IN PROCESS

When both sides embarked on the
N.E.W. process a questionnaire was
given to the workers and manage-
ment, asking them what kind of work
they think is possible in the division.
After the forms were filled out, some
30 new job possibilities were consid-
ered, including self-loading trucks,
gravel trucks, roadside chippers, gate
building and bridge building.

All of the suggestions were exam-
ined from a practical economic per-
spective as to what could be done by
company employees. Both sides sat
down to discuss and sometimes hag-
gle over the suggestions for jobs.

The union landed new jobs on the
long-line machine, a new cut and skid
selective logging team, and road deac-
tivation. It is still seeking new posi-
tions for gravel truck drivers, log
processor operators and tree toppers.

“We've been talking about gravel
trucks as new jobs since the begin-
ning of the process and the company
still is not listening,” says Kinney. “In
the past those jobs used to be I.W.A.
Now, with the Forest Practices Code

calling for debris management and
backhauling, the company has to pay
attention to the issue that these
should be our jobs.”

Kinney says those new positions
should be posted for existing I.W.A.
crew and not awarded to contractors,

DIVISION RECOVERING FROM
HUGE CUTBACKS

Since 1989, Local 1-80 has suffered
drastic job losses on the south of Van-
couver Island. After Fletcher Chal-
lenge Canada was formed out of the
merger of B.C. Forest Products and
Crown Industries in September of
1988, Fletcher Challenge employed

The union has ad-
dressed several
issues that may have
developed into
contracting out
disputes

more than 500 I.W.A. members in its
Caycuse and Port Renfrew logging di-
visions.

It harvested over 1.25 million cubic
meters of wood each year on public
and private lands. Then, in May of
1989, 55 company and 20 contract em-
ployees were eliminated at Caycuse
and another 70 jobs were cut at the
Port Renfrew Division.

In May of 1989, the company did
away with 141 jobs at the sawmill in
nearby Youbou and closed its Victoria
sawmill, eliminating almost 250 union
jobs.

By 1992, the logging divisions had a
combined total of 300 workers. They
were halved in May of that year to
only 150 when the Caycuse and Port
Renfrew divisions merged to form the
Honeymoon Bay division. The average
age of workers was then 47 years. To-
day that has dropped to the high 30's.

In late 1993 Fletcher Challenge
spun off its logging divsions and Tim-
berWest was formed. In December of
that year, 150 employees remained.

From that time the harvest on pub-
lic lands dropped from about 680,000
cubic meters a year to its current level
of 535,000. The company continues to
harvest about 150,000 cubic meters on
public land.

Since 1993, the total number of em-
ployees at Honeymoon Bay has in-
creased to about 230. Most of that job
growth can be attributed to the Forest
Practices Code which has seen the in-
troduction of long-line machines and

Continued on next page

PISS SE

e Chaser undoes log turn at landing of long-line machine. Two new long-line
sides have been added to bargaining unit under N.E.W.

8/LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1996