oomeenetomeneaell adel LIFELONG Ti GERRY STONEY 1942 - 1999 “A LIFE WELL LIVED” Former I.W.A. National President Gerry Stoney touched the lives of countless in British Columbia and throughout Canada. In May he passed a battle against cancer. Several hundred union and paras eine and pore wentore gathered to pay tribute to his memory during a memorial service. See pages 6 and 7. DISCOVERING JAPAN In late May Local 1-80 President Bill Routley toured Japan with MacBlo officials to see where B.C. log and lumber exports go in that country. He came back with some new ideas to market B.C. wood. SEE PAGES 10 & 11 Lumber market recovery boosts B.C. employment This year the B.C. Forest Indus- try is in better shape than last year in most parts of the province and, asa result, thousands of union mem- bers are back to work. Higher lum- ber prices due to some economic recovery in Japan and a robust U.S. housing market, have helped lum- ber exports. In addition, action by the B.C. government to lower stumpage costs and streamline the Forest Practices Code, have greatly assisted the industry in getting back on its feet. Like last year, the economic recov- ery on the Coast has been generally slower and in certain areas, logging crews have had their return to work delayed by snow accumulation on logging settings. “Some of our members who work on Vancouver Island and the Main- land Coast have had to wait out the snow for an unusually long period of time this year due to the weird weather patterns that British Columbia has been experiencing” said I.W.A. CANADA National Pres- ident Dave Haggard. “Snow has Customs rulings put jobs on line Hundreds of I.W.A. CANADA members’ jobs are presently on the line because U.S. Customs has recently reclassified two more value- added wood products so that they will be included under the Canada - U.S. Softwood lumber agreement. On June 8, the U.S. Customs Ser- vice ruled that notched studs and rougher header lumber, which is used primarily for siding and fascia board, will be covered by the volume limits of the quota agreement. Predrilled studs were reclassifie effective July 1, 1999. e The ruling was made despite the fact that on May 10, the World Cus- toms Organization in Brussels ruled 21 to 1 that because predrilled studs are a value-added product they should not be classified as dimension lum- er. However, although the WCO tech- nically is not binding on the United States, it should assist Canada in its U.S. court battle, says I.W.A. CANADA Research Director Doug Smyth. “The WCO decision indicates how other countries view the correct clas- sification of predrilled studs. Onl. US. lumber interests disagree sail that view,” says Boyes The case, which is now being appealed to the U.S. Federal Circuit ‘ourt of Appeal, will decide the cor- rect category under U.S. tariff classi- fication law. If Canada wins, Smyth said it is unlikely that the U.S. Coali- tion for Fair Lumber Imports — the lobby group which is pushing for the Continued on page two hampered what would have been a stronger recovery in some areas.” Last year Local 2171 had well in excess of 2,000 of its loggers out of work for the entire year. “Tt was just a disaster for working people,” said Local 2171 President Darrel Wong. “This year there is a marked recovery in our local in both the logging and sawmill sectors but there’s still a ways to go in those parts of the industry.” Although major employers like MacMillan Bloedel and Canadian Forest Products intended to go back to work in January and February, some callbacks have been delayed by snowpacks of up to 35-45 feet in depth at higher elevations (see photo page two). Some dontractor camps have had the same difficulties or have logging areas which remain too costly to harvest for current market condi- tions, said Wong. Both of the Local 2171’s Doman. Forest Industries sawmills in Van- couver opened in April following months of down time and the local is working hard to get 185 members back to work at the International Forest Products mill in Squamish, which shut down last July. Mainte- nance crews were sent in mid-June. Doman mills have gone back to work in Local 1-80 after extended down times from last year. Local union president Bill Rout- ley said that the company’s opera- tions in Cowichan Bay, Ladysmith and Nanaimo are back up and run- ning. CIPA’s Nanaimo mill is back to work on one shift after almost one year of shutdown as exports to Japan pick up. MacBlo and TimberWest logging operations are going strong on pri- vate lands despite some minor snow pack problems in isolated areas. In Local 1-85, president Larry Rewakowsky said that MacBlo’s Franklin River logging division started up in late March, soon used up its winter shows, and went down due to snow for three weeks in May. At Sproat Lake logging crews ran out of accessible roadside wood due to snow conditions and lack of felled timber and had to take a week off in June. Brother Rewakowsky predicts that the pace will pick up quite a bit by mid-July as companies try to harvest their quotas and take advan- tage of cost savings under a modi- fied stumpage management system. In the north end of the local, log- gers are working in Gold River and Zeballos and contractors are back following some ups and downs due to snow. The Western Forest Prod- uct’s Tahsis mill, however, is run- ning short of orders for the Japan- ese market and is in danger of curtailment. While MacBlo’s Alberni Pacific mill is producing, Somass Cedar division has a good portion of its Continued on page two