PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Displaced workers get - preference in new jobs by Dave Haggard nJune 19, 1997, after months of tough negotiations with the forest industry, the B.C. government announced the details of the Jobs and Timber Accord. You will read more about the details of it in this issue of the Lumberworker. I.W.A. CANADA members all over the province should understand that the Accord has been a giant undertaking by Premier Glen Clark and his team of negotiators whom are all to be congratulated. What this all really means is that forest companies in B.C. now have to create more jobs with the wood they get from public lands. There will also be real union jobs link- ing displaced forest industry workers to For- est Renewal B.C. silvicultural work so that we can regrow the forests bigger, better and faster. Through the Jobs and Timber Accord we now have the opportunity to begin to make FRBC work, like it was intended to from day one. That means picking up the workers, from logging operations and mills, who have lost their jobs due to land-use decisions and industry downsizing in every part of the province. FRBC will establish a Forest Worker Agency to help displaced workers get their skills assessed and upgraded and then help them find work in the forest sector. New, good-paying, stable jobs will be made avail- able with long-term funding agreements so that people can plan for their future in their own communities which depend on the industry. Our union will sit down with employers to negotiate, on a regional basis, what this new agency will look like and how it will function, so that it can offer workers living wages, good ben- efits and decent work- ing conditions. Any worker that is employed by the agency will become an LW.A. member, no matter which union they come from or where they come from. For far too long, non-union silvicultural contractors have had their way with a captive workforce which it has been exploited to no end. The Accord takes FRBC work and puts an end to that. I.W.A. members have been affected by technological change and the creation of more parks and wilderness areas. We’ve got better forest practices and that has also affected jobs as less timber is being cut in certain areas of the province. The Jobs and Timber Accord is a real opportunity, not only for our union, but for communities which depend on the forest industry. The Accord puts good, steady jobs back into the B.C. economy. It calls for the creation of 24,400 direct jobs in the areas of renewing our forests, pro- ducing more value- added products and secondary industry, reducing overtime and rehabilitating fish streams. Over 17,400 indirect jobs can be spun-off as a result of the direct jobs. If we do things right - and that means industry, government and unions - there will be greater econom- ic activity for every- one to share, both the existing work- force an our younger people. The Accord will ensure that industry looks for new and different opportunities in the value-added sector. It’s time to stop export- ing logs, cants and timbers into low paying areas of the world, and start manufacturing high-value products right in this province. Our union has been consistent in pushing for the type of things that are embodied in the Accord. We think that the forest industry is a sunrise industry and that it has a great future. Through the actions of the NDP gov- ernment, pushed by the I.W.A. and other ee the Jobs and Timber Accord is finally ere. Now we've got to get out and defend it from critics whose role in life is none other that to undermine the NDP government and offer nothing for working people other than the status quo. Thope that every I.W.A. member will work together with us and stand by this Accord. LANDS AND FORESTS Union offers stability to silviculture sector by Kim Pollock he British Columbia government’s for- est jobs initiative is now a reality. Part of that reality is a plan to create new jobs in intensive silviculture. And most of those jobs will be union jobs. This has not been uncontroversial. In fact, some people turn absolutely snakey at the mere suggestion. For existing silviculture con- tractors, that goes double. Suddenly, the silviculture contractors’ minds have turned to dark thoughts. These find outlet in horrendous visions of I.W.A. CANADA mem- bers on their crews. According to John Betts of the Western Silvi- culture Contractors Association, for instance, the B.C. silviculture industry is world-class now, but with “slower, unskilled workers” the standards will rapidly slip. “If you have spent your life running machin- ery or in a sawmill and you’re asked to go and jump like a gazelle from stump to stump it would be difficult,” he told the Victoria Times- Colonist. Dirk Brinkman of Brinkman and Associates Reforestation told the Colonist that “the reality is, it may be the death knell of our industry.” The contractors’ concerns can be chalked up to defense of the status quo, of course: after all, they have profited for years on the labour of eaten mostly young workers, who average only about 25 days of work a year, enjoy poor health and safety protection, no benefits and poor pay for all that leaping. Recently, say silviculture workers, the con- tractors have quietly sought relief from the paowncels laws governing overtime pay. Leap longer, gazelles. All this would be highly mysterious, certainly, to I.W.A. Canada members already doing silvi- cultural work. ° In five of the eleven union locals in the province there are already up to 270 I.W.A. members who do silvicultural work part of the year. ¢ In the recent weeks we ran ads in newspa- pers around B.C. fea- turing'a group of silvi- cultural workers from International Forest Products’ Ltd. Hope operation. These work- ry i‘ ~~ <2» (a ers do spacing, pruning and other silvicultural jobs. ° At Weldwood Cana da’s Hinton, Alberta, operation, tree planters and other forestry workers have been I.W.A. members for nearly 40 years. Workers there have a choice between a standard rate or an incentive that brings them up to $200 a day. ¢ At Spruce Falls Inc.’s operations near Kapuskas- ing, Ontario, Local 1-2995 members get the first shot at tree-planting work, which pays an hourly rate of over $18.00 an hour. These workers plant some 1600 seedlings dur- This helps in turn to stabilize local communi- ties, as workers’ wages circulate back through the local economy. It’s a “win-win” situation that has worked and stood the test of time. So the silvicultural contractors should calm down. Because after years of profiting from those young gazelles, it’s about time they and other forest companies put something back into local communities. If we want healthy communities and a future for our kids, that has to happen. And that is exactly what the New Democratic Party govern- ment’s forest Job and Timber Accord is all about. In the past five years, after all, land-use plan- ning exercises have created over 2.4 million hectares in new parks. The Forest Practices Code has brought forest management in B.C. up to world standards. Every year since 1987, the area reforested has exceeded the area harvested. The recently completed five-year Timber Supply Review and annual allowable cut determina- tions has reduced harvest levels on Crown forests from 78 million ing an eight-hour day. The same goes for work- ers at the Abitibi-Price Camp #34, north of Cochrane, Ontario. e For nearly 25 years, tree planters at Repap Enterprises operations in Manitoba have been unionized. Those work- It is about time that silvicultural contractors and other forest companies put something back into local communities. cubic metres to 67 mil- lion; Forest Renewal B.C. will spend $400 million on watershed rehabilita- tion, unpaved forest prac- tices and reforestation. All this‘ has vastly changed and improved the province’s forest industry. But that change ers’ collective agreement : provides them a standard piece rate for each seedling they put in the ground. 4 ¢ Until they were driven out of work by anti-log- ging zealots, unionized loggers working for the Greater Victoria Water District did a lot of the reforestation and silvicultural work in the Greater Victoria water supply area. They spent much of the year harvesting timber to reduce fire threats and prevent blowdown, erosion and disease. But they also engaged in site prepara- tion, stand tending and other silvicultural pro- jects. These jobs may not pay rates as high as log- ging or sawmill work. But they ensure better pay than is usually forthcoming to non-union tree planters from silvicultural contractors. And they also ensure benefits, grievance procedures, health and safety protection and other benefits of union membership. They also typically pro- vide employers with a stable, skilled workforce over the long haul. has definitely put down- ward pressure on employment levels. Now hopefully the time for jobs has arrived. Premier Glen Clark’s government will offer companies incentives for job creation and will ask FRBC to help finance job creation in new areas of silviculture work — unionized silvicul- ture work. There will also be new job opportuni- ties in an expanded value-added and remanufac- turing sector. All told, the province aims to cre- ate some 40,000 jobs between now and the turn of the century. 2 Time i tell, of course. But right now it seems a far cry from the “death knell” that Brinkman glumly predicts. Back in the 1980s, the former Seal Credit provincial government saw the forest sector as a “sunset industry” 7a sector on its last legs. Today, as Clark says, it is a “sunrise industry.” Kim Pollock is the Director of I.W.A. CANADA’s Environment and Land-Use Department. 4/LUMBERWORKERJULY 1997