¢ A two man team of labour lawyer John Baigent (right) and I.W.A. National

Representative Scott Lunny worked on the union’s submission to the Labour
Relations Board, taking on a battalion of MacBlo lawyers.

Union battles MacBlo
at Labour Relations
Board hearings

MacMillan Bloedel’s all-out efforts
to divide and conquer I.W.A. CANADA
members in British Columbia have
landed both the company and the
union in front of the B.C. Labour Rela-
tions Board. The union has made its
case that the Council of L.W.A. Locals,
consisting of Locals 1-71, 1-80, 1-85,
217, 363, and 1-3567 should be the
legally recognized bargaining agent
for all of the I.W.A.’s certified solid
wood operations on the coast.

In August of last year, sub-local
union representatives from MB opera-
tions met in Nanaimo with members
of the I.W.A. provincial negotiating
committee and gave the committee
their full support to do everything
possible to prevent MB from splitting
up the union after having deaccredit-

Dave Tones wins
election as new
National 3rd V.P.

The union has a new National Third
Vice President in the name of Dave
Tones, former President of New West-
minster-Fraser Valley Local 1-3567.
On January 30, Brother Tones took
the oath of office following his victory
in a national referendum ballot (see
election results - page one).

Born in Ocean Falls, Brother Tones
first started at the pulp mill in 1966 at
the age of 18 where he was a member
of the International Pulp and Sulphite
union. He started out on clean-up and
then moved on to jobs on the boom,
and as a cut-off saw operator in the
sawmill.

In 1971-72, he was employed at
what is now the Eurocan pulp mill in
Kitimat, as a member of the PPWC.
Then, in 1974-75 he went on to the
MacMillan Bloedel Harmac pulp mill
on Vancouver Island as a rank and file
member of the then CPU.

Eventually Tones was employed at
the Bay Lumber sawmill in Maple
Ridge where he became an I.W.A.
committee member in 1976. Following
a short stint as first vice-president of
Haney Local 1-367, he became presi-
dent in 1982.

Tones served as President of Local
1-367 until 1992 when it merged with

ed from Forest Industrial Relations.

MB applied to leave FIR in June of
last year and was granted the right to
do so two months later. In efforts to
protect its members from being
picked off in operation-by-operation
bargaining (what MB terms “enter-
prise bargaining”), the I.W.A. Council
has vowed to sit down and bargain
with the giant forest company as one
unit.

MB pulled out the stops after the
union made a preliminary application
by legally challeging the status of the
Council and whether or not it had the
full support of union members.

But on January 22, an LRB panel,
headed by vice-chair Emily Burke,
ruled that MB’s objections to allowing
the Council to apply to bargain for all

° Third V.P. Dave Tones

New Westminster Local 1-3567 to
form the new Local 1-3567, which to-
day is one of the I.W.A.’s largest juris-
dictions in terms of membership.

He served in that position until be-
coming a national I.W.A. officer.

“I have been a member of a number
of unions over the years and can say
for certain that it is a great honour to
represent I.W.A. members on the na-
tional scene,” says Brother Tones. “I
want to thank all of the people from
my local and from across the country
that supported me during the election
campaign.”

One of Brother Tones’ major re-
sponsibilities will be that of national
officer responsible for education. He
has been active in education circles
for a number of years.

Tones sits on the B.C. Federation of

its members employed by the compa-
ny, would not be allowed.

Union lawyer John Baigent said
that the Council has every right to
Taree all its members working for
“When a company accredits to an
employer association, the union
doesn’t have any right to challenge the
application,” said Baigent. “Why
should the employer get to challenge
aunion bargaining association?”

However, MB stuck its nose into
the I.W.A.’s internal democracy and
argued, unsuccessfully, that the Coun-
cil did not have the support of union
members to represent their collective
interests in front of MB.

A vote of I.W.A. members in MB op-
erations showed that the members
95% are in favour of the Council of
LW.A. Locals.

LW.A. CANADA National President
Dave Haggard says that the company
has started an unnecessary fight with
the I.W.A., which has represented MB
workers for decades.

“MacBlo has an awful lot of go-
dammned nerve to hire a bunch of hot
shot lawyers to go to the LRB and pre-
vent us from democratically repre-
senting our members,” says Brother
Haggard. “By deaccrediting from FIR
there is no doubt that they are out to
bust up our union. That will not hap-
pen because I.W.A. members in every
camp and mill are united and will not
see themselves divided and picked off
one by one.”

The union, following its B.C. provin-
cial wage and contract conference
held in Vancouver on February 27 and
28, (See story page one) has voted on
it demands for association bargaining
with FIR and employer associations in
the province’s northern and southern
interior regions. The same benefits
will apply to MB.

In its efforts before the LRB,
MacBlo is trying the legally compel
the I.W.A. into operation-by-operation
bargaining. The I.W.A. is making every
effort to take on MB at one bargaining
table and preserve FIR as a stable bar-
gaining agency for employers.

Brother Haggard says that MB’s
deaccreditation from FIR and subse-
quent opposition to the Council of
L.W.A. Local has had a destabilizing ef-
fect on labour relations.

“That's not what the forest industry
needs at this point in history,” says
Haggard. “And the top MacMillan
Bloedel brass should realize that tak-
ing us down a path of confrontation

Labour Education Committee and
also represents the J.W.A. on the CLC
Education Committee.

He currently remains the President
of the New Westminster and District
Labour Council after taking that posi-
tion in 1994 following the retirement
of Joe LeClair, former first vice of 1-
3567.

Tones has over 10 years of experi-
ence as a certified educational in-
structor, teaching classes on week-
ends for CLC affiliates and attending
CLC Winter Schools.

Local 1-3567 has a tradition of annu-
al education conferences and annual
safety conferences.

“I believe that if we educated our
committees in the plants and camps,
they will take care of most union af-
fairs,” says Tones. “They are the fu-
ture leadership who will be activists
and organize for this union.”

Some of the top priorities for I.W.A.
CANADA is to organize and educate
its membership, in terms of policing
the collective agreement, political ac-
tion and occupational health and safe-
ty issues.

One of the demands for this year’s
master agreement negotiations with
the forest industry is a province-wide
educational fund. The union is de-
manding that employers pay 5 cents
for each hour worked into an educa-
tion fund.

“If we get that it will be a huge ad-
vancement for our organization,” says
Tones. “In Ontario local unions have
led progress in this area and we

The union represents about
workers covered by 13 v
Terry Smith, National Secretary
surer, says that MB has thrown con-
siderable resources into splitting UP
association bargaining, undermining
FIR, and creating anxiety amongst
union members. 2

“Our attempts to acheive stability in

the forest sector are being met by ma-
jor resistance by this company as it
knows we are out to foil their plans
and prevent ‘enterprise bargaining’,
says Brother Smith.
Gary Kobayashi, president of Van-
couver Local 217, an a part-time mem-
ber of the LRB, says the Board “has
never allowed a company to force its
way this far into the internal union af-
fairs and I doubt that any other com-
pany would even try.”

Following the LRB’s rejection of
MB opposition to the the real issue
left to be decided is whether the com-
pany will have to bargain all of its
units with the Council or whether it
can pursue operation-by-operation
bargaining.

The Board instructed both sides to
send in written submissions of evi-
dence that were to be no more than 50
pages in length. Appendixes on both
sides’ interpretations of logging and
production process were attached to
those submissions.

There were numerous back and
forth replies between the parties fol-
lowed by two days of LRB hearings on
March 11 and 12.

MB argued extensively about its
historical problems with association
bargaining, the complexities and com-
petitive nature of the industry and the
company’s difficulty in implementing
“workplace innovations” such as gain
sharing.

However Baigent quickly pointed
out that the issue was much simpler
and narrower than MB made it out to
be.

He went on to note that LRB ju-
risprudence accepts that one bargain-
ing unit provides inherently more sta-
ble labour relations than a fragmented,
multiple unit structure.

“The LW.A. doesn’t like that MB is
out of FIR but it accepts the fact,”
says Haggard. “What has to be decid-
ed is, now that they are out, should
there be one set of negotiations or
eighteen.”

A decision from the Labour Board
is expected by mid-April.

would like to follow suit in B.C.”

“I think that in the I.W.A. that we
should meld our efforts into making a
successful national education pro-
gram that consists of strong educa-
tional programs in local unions,” he
adds. “At the national level we need to
provide resources to local unions in
order that they can train LW.A. train-
ers and instructional facilitators.”

During the campaign, Brother
Tones traveled in northern and cen-
tral Ontario and the northern interior
of B.C.

He has been a co-chair of the Cam-
paign Labour Committee of the Unit-
ed Way for the Lower Mainland for
the past two years, where many social
issues are addressed. Tones sits as a
member of Cabinet of the United Way
which oversees organizational activi-
ties.

His experience also encompasses
being the past president and execu-
tive member of the Maple Ridge-Pitt
Meadows NDP riding.

20/LUMBERWORKER/APRIL, 1997