IAM guest talks about organizing and co-design

This year Randall Rice Rice from Memphis
Tennessee, who is the Grand Lodge Representa-
tive of the Woodworkers Department of the Inter-
national Association of Machinists, spoke to the
1.W.A. delegates. Parts of his speech talked about
organizing in the United States and new manage-
ment systems in the workplace.

“You know, organizing in the States is tough,
just like I know it’s tough here in Canada,” he
said. “Down there we have problems with our

government that the companies run wild when
they want to and, sooner or later, if they’ve vio-

lated the law, then the government says they
don’t do it any more. There’s not many penalties.”
He commended the I.W.A. for reaching out to
certify over 2,400 new members with more certifi-
cations in front of labour boards.
Rice told the delegates that the IAM organized

19,000 United Airlines workers at over 135 loca-
tions in the U.S. in July.

It was the biggest organizing win in the past 20
years, said Rice.

The IAM, which has 500,000 members, grew by
about 6% (30,000) over the last year. It is now
working on organizing over 8,000 workers at Con-
tinental Airlines.

On the issue of new management systems in
the workplace, Rice said the IAM has made it
clear to employers that there must by a true joint
partnership.

“Our position in the Machinists Union has been
for years that we don’t get involved in quality cir-
cles. We don’t get involved in total quality man-
agement. We don’t get involved in ‘champions’ or
‘change agents,.’...” he said, adding that if the
management wants workers to run the plant or

operations, then the union has to have some real
say in how things are done.

“Tt take a union and it takes the integrity of the
union people to run those mills as efficiently as
they can be run, and the boss has to get out of the
way to do it,” said Rice.

The IAM has its own co-management program
known as High Power Workplace Organizations
(HPWO). Such programs are in place at Harley
Davidson and Remington Firearms and are in
development at Weyerhaeuser.

“We’re changing. We're going to try to mould
that change for us,” said Rice. “We don’t want to
mould that change and let the company come in
and steal your notions and then put all the profit
and all the improvements in their back pocket.
We want it for our workers when that happens.
When we control it we can make it happen.”

e Dan Clements

° Gary Kobayashi

° Serge Vaillancourt

Delegates call for Ul legislation

I.W.A. convention delegates demanded that
the federal government back off on its recent
changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act and
reinstate benefits that have been taken away.

A copy of the resolution, which condemns the
government for cutting benefits, penalizing sea-
sonal workers, clawing back monies from so-
called high income earners, and putting in oner-
ous eligibility requirements, was forwarded to all
provincial federal of labour conventions and the
Federal NDP convention.

Local 1-80’s Dan Clements said that the roll-
back in UI (now called EI by the Liberals) are
giving working people a system that doesn’t meet
their needs.

Brother Clements said that there also needs to
be a public inquiry into the UI system, which is a

system exclusively paid for by workers and
employers,

“We can have the employers say they pay their
portion and we can have us say we pay our por-
tion, but the bottom line is we pay for it,” he said.

We pay for it in deferred wages or in wages out of
our pocket.”

“There has to be some way that a system is put
in place where we as the people who are sup-
posed to benefit from this insurance plan can
have a say in what it should be, what it should
do, and how it should react to our needs,” he
added.

Local 2171 First Vice President Gary Kobayashi
said that the UI program is becoming a scandal.

“At a time in our history when we have record
levels of unemployment, when we have record
levels of underemployment, when we have record
levels of part time work, fewer and fewer people
are entitled to benefits and the unemployment
insurance fund has a surplus,” he said. “Now
there is something immoral and something scan-
dalous about that.”

“Part of the problem is th pettiness of the
bureaucrats. Part of the problem is the slowness
of the bureaucratic processes. Part of the prob-
lem is the way they allocate or interpret the
rules on vacation pay,” said Kobayashi. “The

very least we can do for working people who are
unemployed is give them access to a decent level
of income while they are looking for work.”

Serge Vaillancourt, of Local 2171, told the del-
egates that he was laid off for five months, had
his UI cut in lieu of holiday pay MOL pet out yet
by the employer. He said “your holiday pay is

your holiday pay, and it shouldn’t be taken away
from you. We have to work on that part of the
legislation.”

The convention also passed a resolution object-
ing to the use of UI surplus funds for deficit
reduction.

¢ Charlotte Yates

¢ Ken Neumann

Organizing panel held

Something new at this year’s convention was a
panel discussion on the topic of organizing.
Invited guest were McMaster University Profes-
sor of Labour Studies Charlotte Yates, CLC
Director oe Education Mike MalaaEGy IAM Admin-
istrative Assis' for Organizing Gary Will and
the United Steelworkers of America’s Ken Neu-
mann, President of District 3.

Ms. Yates said strength in the labour move-
ment lies “in the unity and solidarity within a
union, the willingness and the ability of each
member of a union to stand side by side his and

Continued on page twenty-five

24/LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1998