¢ On March 7, I.W.A. CANADA Local 500 made national I.W.A. history when it held a day-long women’s local union conference with 25 delegates from 12
operations. Seated left to right are Monette Graham, Rhonda Baird, Mary Lou Scott, Debbie Romanychyn, and Becky Leighfield. Sitting left to right
are Brenda Mueller, Laura Robbins, Barb Stam, Ann Brown, Donna De Groot, and Tami Gates. Standing, left to right, are Doreen Hamilton, Kim Brint-

nell, Monica Jimmo, Tammy Skinner, Annie Thiessen, Shirley Powell, Eleanor Broughton, Orma Doucet, Gwen Duffy, Lori Beyer, Marg Williams, Crys-
tal Swindlehurst, Jean Hedley, Linda Brown and Pearl Schmidt.

Local 500 holds first w

Breaking new ground for the
1.W.A. was Local 500, when on March
7, it hosted a one day conference
exclusively for women. It was a first
for a local in the national union.

Twenty-five women from 12 local
union operations in south-central
and southwestern Ontario, attended
the event which was held at the
Local 500 union hall in Hanover.

“The whole conference went very
well, especially considering that it
was the first time we had done any-
thing like this,” said Mary Lou Scott,
a sub-local chairperson from the
Atapco distribution warehouse in
Stratford. “There was a good chem-
istry among the participants.”

Sister Scott and Monette Gra-
ham, an instructor with the Cana-
dian Labour Congress, and herself a
rank and file member of the United
Steelworkers of America, facilitated
the conference which dealt with a
number of issues facing women in
the workplace today.

The participants got an overview
of the structure of the I.W.A., from
the sub-local, to the local, to the

. national union level.

“We had to explain to the partici-
pants that the entire I.W.A. is male-
dominated and pointed out the path
that women have to take to assume

leadership roles in the organiza-
tion,” said Scott.

Out of Local 500’s 25 bargaining
units (and approximately 2,300 mem-
bers), only 3 plant chairs are women.
That is despite the fact that the local
consists of a 20-30 percent women
membership, based on the time of
year.

“Many women face barriers at
work or at home and are not involved
in the union,” said Scott. “Others
faces different barriers when they
don’t know how to get information
from the I.W.A. and attend various
education courses that are put on.”

During the conference there was a
video shown on the media’s stereo-
typing of women. In the afternoon,
the women broke into workshops
where they did some role playing in
five different scenarios that involved
aggressive, assertive and passive
behavior.

One part involved a scenario where
the women had to speak up over a
job posting for a male oriented job.

National union Safety Director
Tom Lowe spoke briefly at the con-
ference over the issue of equality in
the workplace. He said that men
and women must work together as
unionists and utilize each other’s
unique strengths and abilities for
the betterment of workers.

os

omen’s conference

¢ Local 500 President Bruce Weber with conference facilitators Monette
Graham (left) and Mary Lou Scott.

The delegates also did an exercise
on scripting a meeting with the
employer and how to set an agenda
and not get side-tracked.

Local 500 President Bruce Weber
told the Lumberworker that those
who participated in the course “were
delighted and they want to do it
again.”

He said that he has received very

¢ Left to right are I.W.A. CANADA members Orma Doucet, Donna De Groot, Ann Brown and Tammy Skinner.

positive feedback when going out to
the sub-locals.

When I.W.A. members at the Inter-
forest plant in Durham recently held
a union meeting, they elected 3
women to 4 positions for the local
delegated meeting in May.

“The women in the plant obviously
learned how to get themselves out to
the union meeting and get them-
selves heard,” said Brother Weber.
“Many women in our local have a
great deal of talent and have been
timid on getting in there and being
heard. Now they are find out how to
do it (get involved).”

The one day conference was the
result of a resolution that Sister
Scott submitted to last year’s annual
delegated meeting. She got moti-
vated to put in the resolution after
attending the first National Women’s
Conference of I.W.A. CANADA which
was held two months earlier in Van-
couver.

“Something I have learned to do,”
she said, “is that it’s good to be edu-
cated but if you don’t do anything
with what you learn, then there’s a
lot of energy wasted.”

Sister Scott and other I.W.A.
women from across Canada will be
attending the second national
women’s conference in Winnipeg
between June 7-9, 1998.

 18/LUMBERWORKER/MARCH,

1998