e MacBlo’s coastal logging crews have been hardest hit by company’s
attempt to restructure the workforce. Photo taken at Menzies Bay log-

ging division on Vancouver Island.

MacBlo cuts

Continued from page one

lan Bloedel is offering buyouts or
mgeoiioachiave

better severance pack:
its goals.

No local union has been hit harder
than Port Alberni Local 1-85. When
MB made its job cut announcements
in January, the local union only had
about 350 of 1,800 members work-
ing. All of the logging divisions were
down and only one mill, Somass
cedar, was in operation.

“Our membership has been
adamant that there will be no con-
cessions on contract issues,” said
local union president Larry
Rewakowsky. “We have sat down at
the table with MB over co-manage-
ment arrangements where we insist
that our members must have full
and meaningful input and that there
must be solid reasons for any deci-
sions that are made.”

In late February, the Alberni
Pacific Division whitewood mill went
back on to one shift. That meant
about 135-140 workers out of a total
seniority list of 582 were back on the
job indefinitely following almost four
months of unemployment. MB man-
agement set conversion cost targets

er thousand board feet of finished

lumber based on one shift.

The workers achieved those costs
and hope to see a second shift go on,
pending orders in the months ahead.

The company has set a target fig-
ures, by year end, for both the Japan-
ese and U.S. market.

At Somass, there have been spo-
radic layoffs as the mill has been
experimenting with different cuts to
conserve cedar as the company has
two other cedar mills, New West-
minster Lumber Division and the
Canadian White Pine Division in
Vancouver.

In Local 1-85 the company has
joined the Franklin River and Sproat

ake divisions. This year the
Franklin portion will be given only
500,000 of its 750,000 cubic meters
by the company. Rewakowsky said
that will likely jump to 1 million
cubic meters next year, which coin-
cides with the five year cut control
period.

The Sproat crew has been given
350,000 cubic meters and a target
price for wood costs while the
Franklin crew is looking at an April
start-up under a co-management

arrangement. '
Contractor cuts in both divisions

will go down this year, although not
as severely as the Franklin com-
pany crew.

On January 31 of this year, the
Kennedy Lake logging division per-
manently shutdown.

In Local 2171, company logging
crews are starting up again, although
not in full force. In MB’s Port McNeill
logging division there are up toa
total of 155 I.W.A. members to be
recalled and 105 stump-to-dump
contract logging employees.

Less than one-third of contract
employees are back to work at the
Stillwater division operations and
no contract employees are back in
the Queen Charlotte Islands.

Local 2171 President Darrel Wong
told the Lumberworker that the
local expects most of the workers
back by April or May as MB has to
get at least 50% of its annual allow-
able cut in by the end of the year.

In the Queen Charlotte Islands
company and contract employees
are faced with possible 30% job
losses this year due to a correspond-
ing drop in harvesting. The Haida

Indians have claimed certain areas
in the Queen Charlottes which are
targeted for logging as “special
places, said Wong.

“MB has, over the years, contin-
ued to use these areas to determine
their annual allowable cut,” he said.
“These areas have been unofficially
set aside over the past number of
years but now that we need access
to these areas to maintain the AAC,
we're finding that it is very difficult
to attain cutting permits and/or
road approvals.” 2

“Therefore there will be a signifi-
cant reduction in the AAC, pending
the final outcome of the timber allo-
cation of these areas,” he added.

“There is some work being done
to get to that timber but, in the
short term, it doesn’t look very good,”
he said. “We have told MB that they
should offer severance packages
and relocation allowances for our
members in the Queen Charlotte
Islands if there is not going to be
work this year.”

Wong has been frustrated by the
way the MB has been dealing with
layoffs, callbacks and employee
indoctrination into co-management
schemes.

“I have informed MB manage-
ment the they have to get back to
dealing directly with our local union
and back off going to the crew
directly to circumvent the local,” he
said. “I think that this has the poten-
tial of causing us a considerable
amount of damage because if Tom
Stephens is able to pry our member-
ship away from us then I think that
it’s the beginning of a process that
the rest of the industry will attempt
to follow.”

“If M&B gets more through this
process than other companies that
belong to FIR, you can be assured
that the other companies will try to
get whatever benefits they can with-
out any cost,” he added.

Local 2171 has members in MB
operations at Canadian White Pine

and K3 Specialty and Particle Board
divisions. Work at those operations
has been steady.

“We’ve had input into decisions
that are being made at these opera-
tions because we have insisted on
such dialogue,” said local union
First Vice President Gary Kobay-
ashi. At the Canadian White Pine
mill, management has said it will
close the doors unless the crew elim-
inates lost time accidents.

“Tt was a direct threat (from MB)
that can be viewed as a lock out if it
occurs,” said Brother Kobayahsi.

In Courtenay Local 363 over 500
loggers have had their call back to
work delayed. Local union president.
Sy Pederson said that only about 50
workers are back on the job in Men-
zies Bay division. Company employ-
ees and contractors are still laid off
at MB’s Eve River and Kelsey Bay
divisions.

Brother Pederson said that MB’s
idea of codesigning workplaces
intends to eliminate 25-30% of the
workforce.

“The I.W.A. is interested in creat-

¢ All three MB cedar mills have been going strong due to strong markets.
Photo from Canadian White Pine division, Vancouver.

ing jobs, not eliminating them,” he
said. “If we can find better ways to
reduce costs, to work smarter, and
produce a better quality log, we are
prepared to take part. But in our
local we are resisting setting pro-
ductivity levels or targets and our
members say that safety is a key
issue when you start to talk about
increasing production.”

“Our position is that you get paid
a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s
work,” he added.

In Duncan Local 1-80 on South-
ern Vancouver Island, where MB
operates predominately on private
lands, the company has been review-
ing the volume of timber it harvests
on private lands in its Northwest
Bay, Nanaimo River and Shawni-
gan Lake divisions.

Local union First Vice President
Carmen Rocco said that last fall,
MB told I.W.A. crews that there
were going to be cut reductions on
some private lands. But he said that
since Tom Stephens took over, the
company has notified employees
and staff on private lands that there
are going to be increases in the
annual cuts.

“We're concerned about our mem-
bers’ long-term well-being by har-
vesting at rates (on private lands)
that are unsustainable,” said local
union president Bill Routley. “We’ve
said to the companies like MB and
TimberWest on southern Vancouver
Island that we want to look at their
land base in terms of the old growth
timber that’s left and the second
growth timber that’s available and
do our own assessment of whether
or not this logging is sustainable
because some of the companies are
talking about going to a rotation
age of 40-50 years,” he said. “There’s
going to be nothing but a pulp crop
if we're not careful.”

MB’s Chemainus sawmill has not
missed a beat, said Routley.

It receives the highest value logs
and produces large timbers which

draw the big bucks because of the
clear lumber recovered.

Local 1-80 did lose 35 workers
when the MB Reforestation Centre
in Naniamo closed its doors. The
centre produced approximately 4
million seedlings a year and hada
tree improvement research area
and seed orchard.

“It just makes no sense for a major
forest company to not have their
own tree nursery facilities on Van-
couver Island when they have so
much land,” added Routley. “It is
totally irresponsible for MB to not
focus on growing its own seedlings
and do a better job in the silvicul-
ture end of the industry to grow the
type of trees we need to sustain cuts
in the future.”

In Local 1-3567’s opinion MB will
have to find more workers at the
New Westminster Lumber Division,
which processes cedar. At the oper-
ation work is steady and the com-
pany should need new production
employees to replace those who will
likely leave production to go into
apprentices.

“Tt’s not just MB, all our cedar
mills, are doing well at this point in
time,” said Local 1-3566 President
Sonny Ghag.

Brother Ghag said that his local
stands in solidarity with all other
L.W.A. locals in dealing with MB.

“The issues that we face as a union
are bigger than just our cedar mill,”
said Ghag. “MacBlo and Tom
Stephens will go after whoever they
can, whenever they can, and our
members must always keep that in
mind.”

“If MB wants to try anything dif-
ferent in our local, they are going to
have to sit down with our union and
negotiate just like we did with Inter-
for (International Forest Products),”
he said. “It’s like any other agree-
ment. We've got to have some guide-
lines and we’ve got to have a good
understanding of what we're agree-
ing to.”

LUMBERWORKER/MARCH, 1998/3