WE'RE ON THE MOVE

This year over 180 I.W.A.
delegates assembled in
Thunder Bay, Ontario to

set a new direction to
organize and grow the
national union.

PAGES 16-25

CONVENTION!

¢ Local 2693 member Juan Hernandez and his fellow workers
decided to make some changes in their lives and joined the I.W.A.

RESPECT’

The |.W.A.'s organizing program exists to extend the benefits of union-
ization to workers like those people at Industrial Hardwood Products in
| Thunder Bay. For full details see re story on pages 10-11.

Forest industry slump
hits B.C. membership

In the last quarter of this year
the B.C. forest industry has been
hit with a sh: and temporary eco-
nomic Slane it has not seen
since the recession of the early
1990’s. On the Coast of British
Columbia there have been over 5,000
workers who have received early
layoff notices, some as early as Octo-
ber and November.

A collapse in Japanese housing
markets, due to a number of com-
plex factors, has caused a tempo-
rary evaporation for much of the
Coast’s lumber shipments to that
country. Lumber sales to Japan,
which hit over 2.6 billion board feet
last year, have plummeted, throw-

Union adopts
organizing and
growth strategy

I.W.A. CANADA is gearing up to
organize new members and changes
made at the 11th Constitutional
Convention, held in Thunder Bay,
Ontario between September 29 -
October 2, 1997 are going to help
make it happen.

Delegates to the convention (see
highlights pages 16-25) adopted a
new “Organizing and Growth Pro-
gram” which will put the money
and the resources in the areas where
they are needed to grow the union.

A new funding formula will now
dedicate 25% of every per capita
dollar paid to the national union to
organizing, which will be extra to
the money already being spend by
the national and local unions.

The new National Organizing
Fund is monitored by a special com-
mittee of the National Executive
Board and will be used to offset
costs of organizing campaigns. This
includes costs such as training new
organizers, putting organizers on
campaigns, and fighting often costly
legal battles.

“The I.W.A. is interested in orga-
nizing anyone in this country who
walk, talks and looks like a worker,”
said national union president Dave
Haggard. “As a national trade union,
with members from coast to coast,
we are anergasing our obligations to
extend the benefits of membership
in our union to all kinds of workers,
whether they be from the forest
industry, the service sector, the
public sector, or from any industrial
sector.”

“At the national convention in
Thunder Bay our union took a good
hard look at the future and made
some moves to take us into the 21st
century as a progressive organiza-
tion that cares about people from all
walks of life,” said Haggard.

Continued on page two

ing thousands of I.W.A. members on
the employment lines.

That combined with lower lumber
prices in the United States, high
stumpage costs, and a depressed
market for wood chips because of
still slumping pulp and paper prices,
have caused further short work
weeks, shift shutdowns, and tempo-
rary closures of 1-2 months or longer.

In the province’s Interior, many
union sawmills have gone to shorter
work weeks or have suspended oper-
ations for defined periods of time,
some indefinitely.

In short, the industry in many
parts of the province is hurting eco-
nomically and so are I.W.A. mem-
bers. It is lean time for many I.W.A.
members and their families.

The industry is pointing its finger
at market forces and government
policies such as increased stumpage
rates, and higher wood costs related
to the Forest Practices Code.

The union is concerned about high

ptumpaze costs as well and says
that there are some solutions in the
works to fix the way the province is
collecting it.

In early December the union
issued a press release which called
for industry to stop pointing its fin-
gers at the government and get on
with efforts to fix the province’s
stumpage system.

“We learned that the industry,
which is complaining about ‘govern-
ment inaction’ on the issue of
stumpage rates, is currently in
receipt of an offer of relief. Instead
of dealing quickly with that offer,
they have asked for two months to
study the issue. That’s not good
enough,” said I.W.A. CANADA
National President Dave Haggard.

The union stated that the indus-
try’s delay in dealing with stumpage
rates could result in the loss of an
opportunity under a provincial law
passed earlier this year.

Bill 51, which was a technical
amendment to the laws governing
the share of stumpage going to the
industry, government and Forest
Renewal B.C. allows a “one-time-
only” change to the amount that
industry pays in stumpage on the
trees it cuts on Crown land. The
last chance to make that change is
December 31 of this year.

“It’s forest workers and their com-
munities who pay for any delay in
any effort to provide stumpage
relief,” added Brother Haggard.
“That’s why we’re urging them to
quit fiddling while Rome burns and
get on with it. We particularly urge
the industry to quit claiming that
nothing is happening and figure out
a way to take advantage of this
opportunity. The owe it to the work-
ers and taxpayers of the province.”

Regardless of the outcome of the
dispute over the B.C. government’s
current offer on stumpage, Haggard
said there has to be more work done
on the assessment of stumpage.

Continued on page two