Local 1-71 and Interfor join to create new unit for Forest Renewal work Tt was only until recently that B.C. Loggers’ Local 1-71 President Darrel Wong, was fuming at the likes of large forest companies like International Forest Products over the issue of not creating Forest Renewal B.C. (FRBC) jobs for union members. A recent development to help re- solve that issue occurred in mid-Feb- ruary when the local union and the company signed a memorandum of agreement to create a new bargaining unit consisting of up to 60 Local 1-71 members. Those employees will be designated to performing enhanced forestry work. It the first time in history that the union and an employer have jointly created a new company division to perform just forestry work. Interfor, will now provide work for I.W.A. members on FRBC projects. Brother Wong says that union has been leaning on the company, both privately and in public, to create some jobs for I:W.A. members that are af- fected by continuing reductions in an- nual allowable cut in the Kingcome and the Mid-Coast Timber Supply Ar- eas and ever-shortening and disap- pearing work years. The local union has also been work- ing with the company to restructure its logging operations in the those Timber Supply Areas to account for dropping harvest levels. It is the union’s intention that restructuring should only be done by providing new job opportunities. “We are very happy that Interfor has seen the light and decided to part- ner with our local union to create some meaningful employment oppor- tunities at union rates,” says Brother Wong. “We have been trying to pre- vent Interfor, and any other company for that matter, from contracting out FRBC work.” In Interfor’s case the FRBC projects involving I.W.A. members have been almost non-existent until now. Brother Wong says that the compa- ny and the union are trying to grapple with declining timber harvests and layoffs on the coast and that the new FRBC division is exactly what is need- ed to employ laid off union workers. Approximately 150 union members in Interfor logging divisions are being laid off during the current restructur- ing of the company in the Kingcome - mid-coast area. As part of the ratified memorandum of agreement, Interfor has agreed to provide up to 70 members early retire- ment or voluntary severance options. These options, if accepted, will pro- vide pension bridging for all I.W.A. CANADA Local 1-71 employees em- ployed in logging who are aged 60-65 and those wanting early retirement between the ages of 55-59. In addition to the new FRBC divi- sion of Interfor, the company will start up a fourth helicopter logging operation and will train and employ an additional 20 union members, to be trained with FRBC resources. Currently the company has three LW.A. heli-logging crews in place for its Helifor division. “Instead of hiring off the street, He- lifor is actually going to run job post- ings for these 20 new jobs throughout the I.W.A. - Interfor operations affect- ed by the downsizing,” says Nick Kauwell, the sub-local camp chairman at Kincome Inlet. The company has agreed, with FRBC assistance, to train and employ another 5 I.W.A. members for forestry and road monitoring work. Those jobs will be posted in the Bella Coola area for preferential hiring treatment. The five person crew will work through- out the Bella Coola are. Interfor has also committed to training and employing 5 Local 1-71 members on a skyline yarder. It now has a partial crew trained which can be used in alternate harvesting set- tings. Currently the machine is in Cleagh Creek and is not working. Going further as part of the restruc- ¢ At Truck Logger Association's annual convention in January, Local 1-71 Presi- dent Darrel Wong (right) spoke on the need for the industry to co-operate on FRBC projects. To his right in FRBC Chairman Roger Stanyer. turing program, Interfor will provide 10 more jobs at its dimension lumber sawmill in Squamish. Training will be provided for the mostly entry-level po- sitions. The combined drop in annual allow- able cut in the Kingcome and Mid- Coast TSA’s adds up to over 647,000 cubic meters - enough wood to run three large logging camps. There is to be an amalgamation of four camps. Kingcome Inlet and Scott Cove will merge into one camp in Kingcome Inlet. Shoal Harbour and Security Bay will both merge and go into the Gilford Is- land operation. The crew at Security Bay hasn’t worked since July of 1996. Total AAC for Kingcome Inlet is about 1.2 million cubic meters. In another move, a Fraser Valley based contractor, G&F Logging, will join with Kwatna Timber, another contractor for Interfor and will go into the Jenny Inlet area. Interfor’s Moses Inlet is dying off and will log about 70,000 cubic me- ters, mostly by helicopter, in what will be its final year of a forest license. Darol Smith, sub-local chairman and chairman of the I.W.A.’s transition team at Moses Inlet, says that the new FRBC division will focus on spacing, brushing, thinning, pruning and other techniques to improve growth and yield of future forest. “After all that is what FRBC is sup- posed to be about in large part,” says Brother Smith. “To my knowledge the growth and yield studies that we will do will be the first ones carried out with FRBC funding.” Smith says increased growth rates are essential to reducing “green-up” times between adjacent cut blocks. Under the Forest Practices Code sec- ond growth saplings in a cut block must reach a height of 3 metres be- fore adjacent trees cut blocks can be felled. Brother Kauwell says that Interfor has played ball with the I.W.A. and avoided costly arbitration that, in the end, would not have created any more jobs. “T think they realize that they have gotten further when they have worked with us,” says Kauwell. “It really does set an example for other forest com- panies.” Clayoquot delays Continued from page nine and the recommendations of the Sci- entific Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices in Clayoquot Sound.” A month later the Kennedy Lake crew saw things slipping further out of hand. It told Zirnhelt that there was no development plan in place. The Clayoquot Sound planning process was not operational. Inventory work in pristine watersheds was behind schedule and treaty negotiations with First Nations were slowing things down. The crew wants short and long- term measures put into place. “The fact is that we have to make all of the suggestions to save our jobs,” says Weber. “If we don’t carry the ball then neither the government or MB will.” “We need to see timber cutting per- mits freed up in the short-term and have a long-term economic develop- ment strategy put into place for the workers and the effected communi- ties.” In mid-November Weber wrote Lin- da Coady, MB’s Vice President of En- vironmental Affairs, someone who has followed the Clayoquot issue from the start. “We told her that neither the gover- ment nor MB are providing employ- ment transition strategies as commit- ted to,” says Weber. “We want a yearly cut level as the main cornerstone for employment. That was something that MB should plan for on its own.” By December the Kennedy Lake crew demanded the Ministry of Forests, including Zirnhelt himself, sit down with MB and others to investi- gate why the approval process was not working. There was still no har- vesting and no jobs on the horizon. Brother Rewakowsky says that MB is staying out of Clayoquot Sound rather that sticking it out and harvest- ing timber and creating jobs as per the Scientific Panel’s recommendations. By late February MB had made some limited attempts to offer some very short-term employment for some Kennedy Lake employees. This includ- ed a pilot course for resource invento- ry work, a short silviculture contract, 2-3 months of tree planting for 12 peo- ple, and some work for fallers in the company’s Franklin River division and some falling work for two workers in Cathedral Grove. “These are all good things that a few people in the company are trying to do,” says Weber. “But they are very short-term band-aid solutions to the huge problems that we face.” Weber says that the Scientific Panel Report must stick. The I.W.A. Com- mittee has outlined at least 12 recom- mendations that it wants put into place immediately. Those recommendations would re- quire training for workers in such ar- eas as new forestry techniques (i.e. wildlife tree assessment, riparian zone management, no work zones), imple- mentation of variable retention sys- tems, innovative silvicultural prac- tices, research and monitoring programs, and road deactivation. The union would like to see univer- sity-level training for both forestry and engineering made available to some of the workers. “Our people are ready and willing to take more training for job reclassifica- tion if necessary,” adds Brother Re- wakowsky. “What they naturally want is their original jobs back but we know that is not entirely possible. But ‘we want as many of them back as we can get.” back to work. See story page seven. e UNION BUILT - This trail building site, in the Carmanah Valley, on the west coast of B.C., is one of the growing number of B.C. Parks areas where For- est Renewal B.C. funding is putting displaced I.W.A. CANADA members as = 12/LUMBERWORKER/APRIL, 1997