At a siding for the Domtar Ramsay Camp, north of Sudbury, a Tanguay loader unloads logging truck for rail haul. Six month strike ends at omiar northern woodlands operations A bitter six month strike ended in late July when 300 Local 2693 mem- bers at Domtar logging operations in northern Ontario voted 56% in favour of returning to work after they fought the employer's attempts to stop contracting out of jobs and the closure of bunkhouse facilities at Ramsay Camp, north of Sudbury and a portable emp in the region. e bushworkers, employed at the company’s operations the the Upper and Lower Spanish Forest Licenses, were solid in their efforts to beat back the company in its demands. “We were at a meeting 5 months into the strike where there was a turnout of over 170 people,” said Local union president Wilf McIntyre. “The crew stuck together. During the strike the employer tried and failed five times to get injunctions against our members on the picket line.” “Our members ran a good picket line and should be proud of what they did,” added Brother McIntyre. “It was a tough strike — the issues were tough and the employer never won anything over us.” The I.W.A. and the employer will go to an expedited arbitration process over the issues of contracting out at operations owned by Domtar. The company, through its sub- sidiaries at Agawa Forest Products in Sault Ste. Marie, Elk Lake Plan- ing in Elk Lake and the J.E. Martel sawmill in Timmins, which are oper- ations that it bought up to expand its fibre supply at it McChesney sawmill in Timmins, has introduced non- union contractors in the woods. An arbitrator, which both sides have agreed will be given full power under the Ontario Labour Relations Act, will making a binding ruling on the contractors. “We stand a very good chance of winning the issue at arbitration,” said McIntyre. “We hope to prove that the operations are related to each other under the Labour Rela- tions Act and are therefore tied together under the collective agree- ment.” McIntyre said that normally the union would have to go to a griev- ance and arbitration through the Labour Relations Board. Under the agreement reached under the strike settlement, the arbitrator will hear the whole background to the case. Fred Miron, retired former national second vice president, will sit on the union’s side of the arbitra- tion panel. On the camps issue, Domtar has reversed the permanent closure of its Ramsay Camp and will continue to operate the portable one. Under the new collective agree- ment a union camp committee will be in full control of camp costs and have access to the company’s books at all times. The room and board costs will be paid 70% for by the employer. Elsewhere in the local union, 240 sawmill workers at the Atikokan sawmill in Atikokan remain dug in over the issue of a 6 day work week. The crew has been on strike since mid-June. The local has also been through conciliation in negotiations with Dubreil Forest Products in Dubreil- ville and is headed for mediation in September. At issue are non-union contractors employed by the company in bush operations and the sawmill’s pension plan, which the union wants to bring up to standard with the rest of the industry. “We could be in a position for a strike at Dubreilville by the end of September depending on the out- come of mediation,” said McIntyre. The union is seeking a collective agreement at the Longlac Wood Industries plywood and particle board mills in Longlac. It has already undergone conciliation and has more meetings in September. yeete The new Nakina pperation is a state-of-the-art sawmill and planing facility. L.W.A. CANADA Local 2693 is ased to be representing new ployees at the Nakina Forest ducts state-of-the-art sawmill in sina, Ontario. The mill, owned by ichanan Forest Products, will y up to and over 160 hourly s when it gets up and run- ion organizes Nakina plant For the first year of the collective agreement, the union has agreed to a grace period to allow the training of employees. : “A lot of the workers in the mill have not worked in a sawmill before,” said Local 2693 President Wilf McIntyre. “It’s a relatively inex- -perienced crew that needs time to be Photo courtesy Local 2693 trained and to be fitted into their new jobs.” The union was granted certifica- tion by the Ontario Labour Rela- tions Board in May of this year. The three line operation is already producing 260,000 board feet of lum- ber on an 8 hour shift. It is predicted that the mill will pump out over 1 million board feet a day when in full swing. And it will do so even taking trees that are down to 2-3/4” - 3” in the butt, to 1-1/2” on the top. Lumber lengths produced range from 6’ to 18, In the first year of the agreement, most production workers will be paid $15.37 an hour and called “Class B” workers. After one year all workers will be classified as “Class A” operators whether they work on the bull edger, run mobile equip- ment, work in the planer, grade lum- ber, or work elsewhere in the plant. The new rate will be $19.71 an hour. “We are starting out in this plant with no baggage from all of the past years that we have been scrapping with Buchanan,” said local union business agent J.P. Carrier, who worked on the organizing campaign with Lloyd McLaughlin, a steward at Kimberly Clark’s Camp 35 bush operations, and national organizing coordinator Mike Hunter. “The history between our local and Buchanan has been one of con- flict but we are searching at new ways of working together,” he added. The new mill sits on a site that Kimberly-Clark once used to sort pulp logs. The decision to allow Buchanan to build the mill was made several years ago by then Nat- ural Resources Minister Howard Hampton, now provincial leader of the New Democratic Party of Ontario. Buchanan’s business plan, which won out over proposals submitted by Green Forest Lumber Ltd. and Tolko Industries, satisfied the gov- ernment’s requirement for job cre- ation in the neighboring communi- ties of Nakina, Geraldton and Longlac. As part of the proposal, Buchanan would maintain its sawmill in Longlac and eventually build a garage and forestry office in Gerald- ton and create new logging jobs. Brother McIntyre and former national second vice president Fred Miron participated in the ground work that became part of the NDP’s forest policy, which called for the use of fiber to create jobs in local com- munities or risk losing it. Fortu- nately the Harris government has not changed that criteria. “We're still pulling new jobs out of the forests because of policies that were introduced by the NDP,” said McIntyre. “T think that’s something that our members should realize.” LUMBERWORKER/SEPTEMBER, 1999/27