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* At the UBC demonstration forest heli-logging training site were Local 1-3567 members (I. to r.) Gregg Bailey, Daryl Sawatzky, Joaquin Richard, Tim Smith,

Shaun Neufeld, and Aaron Isbell. The workers built a secure heli-pad, as seen in the background.

Heli-logging training lifts off with
Forest Renewal funding and support

ver the past several
months, Forest Renewal
B.C. has begun to plough
some of its money into re-
training conventional log-
ging crews for jobs in the helicopter
logging sector. As work years are get-
ting shorter and more helicopter log-
ging settings are being accessed, the
conventional crews have been sitting
at home while heli-logging contractors
have been brought in to do the work.

That has become a divisive issue in
many areas. The union has spoken out
against the trend to heli-logging at the
expense of traditional work. Compa-
nies can be opportunistic in their ap-
plication of heli-logging which can re-
sult in job elimination by getting the
wood in the water in a hurry and then
Jaying off crew.

At the same time it is becoming in-
creasingly necessary to heli-log in
some areas of the province as the
wood is getting higher up and further
away and road building, under the
Forest Practices Code, is getting pro-

i Ora expensive in some cases.
TRAINING I.W.A. WORKERS
Heli-loggers have to be trained
properly and it is against this back-
drop that FRBC is chipping in for the
training of some logging crews out in
the Fraser Valley. In early December
of last year and February of this year,
some I.W.A. CANADA Local 1-3567
members who work for J.S. Jones
Logging and Cattermole Logging re-
ceived some training to prepare them
for possible jobs in the heli-logging
Sector.
On December 11 of last year the
Lumberworker visited an “official
pening of heli-logging training at the
niversity of British Columbia
demonstration forest in Maple Ridge
where workers from the two compa-
nies, mainly J.S. Jones where going
training procedures.
Both falling crews and ground
crews received some valuable lessons
theory and practical applications to
> more familiar with heli-log-

loge ota unique aie
logging on extreme!

ee eee Nei lay the

to avoid breakage.

kers and chokermen have to

to properly estimate the

All workers have to be aware of the
unique hazards that surround the fast-
paced world of helicopters; both the
choppers which pick up the wood and
those that act as support ship heli-
copters.

The ground crews are trained, with
instruction of the Courtenay-based In-
ternational Heli-logging Institute Ltd.,
on a full range of skills including
FRBC training, first aid, chainsaw op-
eration, and how to build a heli-pad.
Half the time is spent in the classroom
and half the time is spent on the hill.
The workers also get 2-3 sessions on
how to get in and out of choppers on
aheli-pad situation.

Dale Clark, an I.W.A. member,
forestry crewman and FRBC coordi-
nator for J.S. Jones says that, because
of the establishment of the Pinecone-
Burke Park, the company has been
faced with a reduced operating area.
This, according to Brother Clark, has

“forced us into more heli-logging at a
faster rate.”

“There will be a lot of that (heli-log-
ging) ongoing in the future,” said
Brother Clark. He estimates that, in
the foreseeable future, up to 30-40% of
the annual allowable cut at J.S. Jones
will be harvested by helicopters.

Local 1-3567 First Vice President
and business agent Barry King says
that regular logging crew must be
trained to do heli-logging jobs.

“If it comes out of our traditional
cut, it (heli-logging) is is the same
principle as putting another yarder on
the claim,” he says King. “Some com-
panies have been saying that heli-log-
ging is such a specialized business
and that they need completely special-
ized crews to do the work. That is not
the case. With some training our
members can do the work.”

A “VIEW OF THE FUTURE”

At the “official” announcement of
the training, which in fact had begun
2-3 weeks earlier, FRBC chairman
Roger Stanyer told the media that

heli-logging represents a “view of the
future.”

“If we can train the existing work-
force to take over those kind of jobs
in some way or another and extend
their otherwise ever-shortening work
year, then that’s good for the industry
in providing stable manpower and
well-trained workers...” said Stanyer,
a former national vice president of
LW.A. CANADA.

He said “the future’s pretty bleak if
we (FRBC) don’t spend some dollars
to help workers became more multi-
skilled that the traditional kind of log-
ging has been.”

The FRBC chairman said that, with
shorter work seasons, the industry
will have trouble getting high quality
workers into it and that to achieve a
decent work year, there needs to be
multi-skilling of the work force.

He said that the training needed fits
with the mandate of Forest Renewal.

“This is the way of the future and
(is) certainly a good thing for the peo-
ple of this area and a good thing for
Forest Renewal to be investing in,”
commented Stanyer. “We're very hap-
py that we can be part of this kind of
an exercise in the Fraser Valley.”

Altogether FRBC has ploughed
about $250,000 in the training project
to pay for training costs and partial
wages.

When questioned by the Lumber-
worker as to the fact that heli-logging
often eliminates jobs, Stanyer said:
“Industry, since we crawled off the
first sailing ships, has been finding
ways to eliminate jobs...that’s life in
the forest industry.”

He said that heli-logging is an op-
portunity to expand the number of
sites that you can’t get wood from by
conventional means.

Stanyer said it is an industry and
economics question as to whether
there are more or less jobs in one
phase or another. “ot

He said that job opportunities are
going to take place with or without
FRBC’s involvement and that it is pos-
sible to train local workforces as op-
posed to bringing in outside workers,
which would result in the layoff of lo-

cals. 5

Local 1-3567 logger Greg Bailey,
from Cattermole Logging in the Na-
hatlach Valley, said that heli-logging is

Continued on page nineteen

LUMBERWORKEP/APRIL 1997/11