¢ The sawmill handles small logs that would otherwise be chipped at Weyerhaeuser’s giant pulp mill in Prince Albert.

Wapawekka

Continued from page eight

where they are kiln-dried and
planed while the chips are sent to
the company’s pulp and paper mill
in Prince Albert.

The workers are represented by
Local 1-184 of the Industrial, Wood
and Allied Workers of Canada,
which successfully sought a volun-
tary application before the mill’s
start-up date.

“We are really excited about this
new partnership because we have
been able to be involved in some
way since the beginning,” said
Local 1-184 President Dennis
Bonville. “Through discussions
held among ourselves and the part-
nership members it was accepted
that our union should be the legal
bargainin; agent for the workers at

Wa: pric
e have listened to the concerns
of the parties involved in the enter-
prise and they have seen the merit
of the things that we have said
about working together for the
good of all participants in the joint
venture,” added Bonville. “The
workers and the company know
that we realize this in a unique and
non-traditional type of workplace.”

In the partnership agreement
between Weyerhaeuser and the
Woodland Cree there is a recogni-
tion that the “parties will promote
the concept of sustained aboriginal
employment and growth.”

As of press time, 24 of the 33
workers in the plant are First
Nations people, 15 of which are
from the Woodland Cree.

“The partners, the company and
we, as a union, have a strong com-
mitment to aboriginal employment
and this type of a joint venture is
and will be beneficial to workers of
all origins and their communities
in the north,” said Brother
Bonville. “The partners are creat-
ing new jobs and new economic
activities which will have their
spin-offs.”

“We have a desire as a union to
work with all pee of groups and
respect their cultures and improve
the lives of working people every-
where,” added Brother Bonville.

The mill has a “team” work con-
cept where the workers and man-
agement work on a consensus basis
to plan their production schedules
and decide who works.

At a 3 day workplace design con-
ference held in April, the union was
invited to sit in with other stake-
holders. :

“We could see from the beginning
that there was going to be a lot
more participation from workers

and Fecnen making jower given
to them,” said Paul Hallen, the
local union’s first vice president
who attended the conference.

In the workplace there are fewer

levels of management, there is
more emphasis on workers making
decisions and there is more flexibil-
ity and movement among the crew
members from work station to work
station. The workers are called
“technicians” who have varying
skill levels. Some of them both
operate and maintain work sta-
tions. _

Also, there is an overriding
emphasis on safety in all aspects of
the workplace.

“We are very happy to see that
there has been an emphasis put on
the health and safety of workers in
the planning of the operation,”
added Brother Hallen. “No collec-
tive agreement means anything to
a worker’s family if they are
injured or killed on the job and the
partners recognize this.”

At the design conference, man-
agers, technicians and a consultant
were brought together to identify a
number of work systems and make
decisions on what type of schedule
would work best.

“We made it fairly clear what the
business needs were and the
employees came up with the
options that would help us deliver
those business needs,” said opera-
tions manager Doug Bowersock.

The first group of technicians
started in January and the mill
was up and running by May.

PRODUCTION PROCESS

The tree length logs are put onto
a deck where they are passed by a
cut-off saw to preferred lengths of
8, 10, 12, 14 and 16 feet.

The small logs, which normally
measure from 5” to 11-1/2,” or cut
off down to a 2” top.

Log scanning and thin kerf tech-
nology allows the mill to produce
dimension lumber out of timber
that would normally be chipped for
pulp. Ninety percent or more of the
ruibs output goes into 2 x 4’s, mak-
ing straight lumber out of crooked
trees.

As of June the crew was putting
about 6,000 logs through the mill
on a 10 hour basis. That will
increase to over 9,000 logs on the
same shift over the long term.

“This group has showed that they
are capable of meeting production
levels that have been targeted and
probably faster than anticipated,”
said Mr. Bowersock.

After mechanical debarking the
logs are put through a chip and saw
and then the boards & through an
optimizer process and trim saws.

The Wapawekka mill has nine
machine centres which the techni-
cians work on. They are the Tan-
guay loader that feeds the mill, the
Hewitt cut-off saw, the debarker
and small log machine, the
unscrambler, trim saw one, trim
saw two, the edger, the sorter, and
the end stacker.

The mill’s hydraulic J-bar system
pes 16 bins that hold the 2 x 4’s and

x 6's.

It has been a shared objective
that all technicians become ade-
quately skilled to work in one or
more machine centre. Some main-
tenance specialists may work in
specific areas and a machine cen-
tre. In some areas, the crew has
found that they can develop skills
in more than two machine centres.

For the most part, the employees
decide themselves when, where
and how to rotate between the cen-
tre.

“We (management) are rarely
involved,” added Mr. Bowersock.
“They (the employees) are making
the decisions and they probably
know better than us anyways in
many cases.”

During the start-up process staff
and crew from Weyerhaeuser’s Big
River mill and the Wapawekka
workers have met to help train the
Wapawekka crew and show them
what Big River’s needs are for
rough cut lumber.

The Wapawekka sawmill pumps
out about 72 million board feet on a
annual basis and that is expected
to increase to over 100 million
board feet once production ramps
up in the future.

WORKING WITH THE UNION

One of the team leaders at
Wapawekka is Harry Groenen, who
is qualified as a Technician Level
III worker. He is an electrician by
trade but also is involved in two
machine centres as time permits.

“Potentially every technician
could learn to run every piece of
machinery in the mill, so we can be
diversified,” said Brother Groen-
ing.

As the Wapawekka operation is
non-traditional, it was difficult at
first to see how the union would fit
in and what role it would play.

Both Groenen and fellow worker
Keith Arseneault went to Local 1-
184’s annual convention to sit in
and get a taste for union matters.
They were also welcomed by other
local union members in Saskatch-
ewan.

“It was an eye opener,” said
Groenen. “And it was good that the
I.W.A. recognized us as a non-tra-
ditional group within its organiza-
tion.”

He said that the union can back
them in job training and on occupa-
tional health and safety issues and
continue to recognize the workers’
distinct identity.

Groenen said that the crew has
already received valuable informa-
tion on safety issues such as fall
protection and the effects of shift
work from the local union, through
Brother Hallen. The local has also
provided information on accidents
that have occurred in the industry.

“Nothing here moves or turn
without safety being the first thing
that is talked about,” he added.

Groenen sees the workplace as a
democratic one that works on a
consensus format.

“It’s not looked upon as manage-
ment and workers — it’s leaders
and technicians,” he said. “Every-
thing that is thought of is brought
to the table with equal credibility.”

“There’s a commitment here to
the success of the business,” he
said. “To date everybody has
embraced that with a passion that
has taken the turmoil out of a
start-up and turned it into a chal-
lenge that we seem to be meeting
head on.”

Partners celebrate opening

“is
© Local 1-184 First V.P. Paul Hallen

A grand official opening it was.
Gathered underneath a tent behind
the spanking new Wapawekka
sawmill near Prince Albert were
workers, their families, community
officials, First Nations leaders, Wey-
erhaeuser brass, representatives
from various levels of government
and the I.W.A.

All were together to celebrate the
landmark achievement of the
wyanawebse Lumber Ltd. partner-
ship.

“This has been by a lot of stan-
dards, a very good start-up,” said
operations manager Doug Bower-
sock. “One of the reasons it has been
is the commitment that the employ-
ees have made and the number of
hours and effort they have put into it
— and that can only come with the
support of good, strong, families.”

The Wapawekka Lumber Ltd.
partnership between Weyerhaeuser
and the Woodland Cree First
Nations of the Lac La Ronge Indian
Band, the Montreal Lake and Peter
Ballantyne First Nations was
equally praised by all those
involved. :

Speaker after speaker had posi-
tive things to say. In a ceremony
conducted by Mr. Bowersock and Ed
Henderson of the Montreal Lake
Cree Nation, many platitudes were
shared.

Senator Allan Bird of the Mon-
treal Lake band lead the ceremony
with a prayer in both English and
native Cree.

“The most important thing is to
work together,” he said. “God put us
on this earth to work together...so
future generations won’t suffer any
more.”

Chief Ron Michel of the Peter Bal-
lantyne Cree Nation, which covers
eight reserves and 6,300 members in
an area from Prince Albert north to
Southern Reindeer Lake on the east
to the Manitoba border, said that
“we are glad to have Weyerhaeuser
as partners.”

e said that apawebes has
taken great care in the hiring of its
employees and has an excellent
aboriginal workplace representa-
tion with First Nations employees,
Metis, and non-Natives. He added
that it should serve as a model for
other companies in the resource
sector.

Continued on page twenty-three

LUMBERWORKER/SEPTEMBER, 1999/9