Sadedaias

° Delegates on the WPWO tour, seen here at the Saturn Automobile plant in Tennessee, included Local 1-417

president Doug Pockett (second from left), Local 1-85 president Monty Mearns (left front) and the national

union’s Ron Corbeil (standing right).

Union participates in joint HPWO tour
through IAM operations in Canada and U.S.

Representatives from the forest
industry were among the delegates
who participated on a Conference
Board of Canada-sponsored High
Performance Work Organization
(HPWO) union-management study
tour which took place between Jan-
uary 15-22.

The I.W.A.’s representatives on
the tour were Local 1-85 president
Monty Mearns, Local 1-417 presi-
dent Doug Pockett and Ron Cor-
beil, the Forest Renewal B.C.
employment coordinator for the

union’s national office.

Other forest industry represen-
tatives included Forest Industrial
Relations representatives Terry
Linekar and Tom Getzie, Gary Grif-
fith of Western Forest Products,
and Doug Mosher of TimberWest
Forest Ltd.

Also on the tour were delegates
from the International Association
of Machinists and Aerospace Work-
ers (IAM), Air Canada, Shell
Canada, the Communication,
Energy and Paperworkers Union,

and labour and management repre-
sentatives from the Royal Cana-
dian Mounted Police.

Three operations toured were the
Air Canada aircraft maintenance
facility in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the
Saturn Corporation automobile
plant in Springhill, Tennessee, and
the Harley-Davidson Motor Com-
pany in Kansas, Missouri. All three
workplaces operate under negoti-
ated partnership agreements.

Brother Cor! eil felt the key to
the three operations’ success was

the degree of trust that the union
and management had. He noted all
three had layoff protection in their
agreements,

Brother Corbeil added that all
three operations involved the rank
and file in running the business as
one.

“As one woman at Harley David-
son put it ‘I used to work in a steel
mill and there you parked your
brains at the front gate and picked
them up on the way home — here@
you continuously make decisions
about the way things are done,”
said Corbeil.

Brother Mearns said that the
tour revealed that workers have to
be involved in day-to-day decision-
making. He said that workers
should be involved in all decisions
within the corporate structure and
not only those made on the shop
floor. However, he didn’t see a clear
picture of that in the operations
visited.

“If the partnership is not han-
dled carefully, the union leadership
can alienate itself from its mem-
bership if, in my opinion, in the
workplaces we visited, they con-
tinue to work by a consensus-based
method on the partnership level,"@
he added. “If the union leadership
disagrees in the way the partner-
ship is going it should always have
the ability to freely voice its opin-
ion to the crew and not be frozen in
by a consensus process.”

Brother Pockett said that the
fact that one side of the partner-
ship can’t get an agreement with-
out the other side is a good thing.

But he pointed out that in the
forest industry the union has to be
concerned, at all times, that its
fibre supply is limited and “if we
don’t have strategies that create
new employment opportunities, we
can work ourselves out of a job.”

“Our workplaces are different
than the ones we visited for this
reason,” he adds.

° In December of last year, the announced NDP candidates met with
national union president Dave Haggard, the union’s provincial negotiat-
ing committee and national executive board.

Dosanjh receives support

On February 22, Ujjal Dosanjh
became the thirty-third premier of
British Columbia when he won the
leadership of the New Democratic
Party on a first ballot at the party’s
convention in Vancouver.

Dosanjh took 769 of 1,318 ballots
cast, while Corky Evans, MLA from
Nelson and Agriculture Minister,
took 549. The I.W.A.’s favoured can-
didate, Education Minister Gordon
Wilson, threw his support behind
Corky Evans before the first ballot,
but the union decided to back Dosanjh
on the vote.

There were over 80 I.W.A. mem-
bers at the convention — 50 as direct
union delegates and over 30 spread
out among labour councils and con-
stituency ridings.

“We had a good debate at the con-
vention with I.W.A. representatives

from all over B.C. and we decided to
go with Ujjal,” said national union
president Dave Haggard. “Although
we first backed Gordon Wilson,
because we thought he was the best.
option to beat the Liberals and, at
the same time, understand issues
affecting the I.W.A., our caucus dele-
gates came to a consensus over sup-
porting Ujjal.”

On January 11, following a meet-
ing of the provincial negotiating com-
mittee, the union announced that it
was supporting Wilson.

“Tn our history, the I.W.A. has been
unified in supporting the leadership
of the NDP, whoever that leader is,
added Brother Haggard. “Now that
Ujjal is in the driver’s seat he can
count on our union’s support.”

“We think he will be a strong leader
for the party and we hope that British

Columbians will give him time to put
his stamp on the leadership of the
province,” said Haggard.

“It’s also time for all factions that
supported different candidates to
come together for the sake of working
people. Gordon Campbell and the
Liberals are not on our side and an
NDP government is still our only
alternative,” added the national pres-
ident.

The 52 year old Dosanjh has become
the first East Indian premier in Cana-
dian history. Born in the Punjab,
India, he moved to Canada at the age

of 17. In 1970 he pulled lumber on a
green chain at the Canada White
Pine sawmill and injured his back.

He later attended law school and
began his career as a social activist,
first assisting the struggles of immi-
grant farmworkers.

“Ujjal has a good, solid background.
as a social democrat and we have a
lot of respect for his capabilities,”
said Haggard. “We look forward to
working with him, his cabinet and
the party to rebuilding the New Demo-
cratic Party in the province and beat-
ing the Liberals at election time.”

Women’s Committee
Continued from page fifteen

In its submission to the board,
the committee said female I.W.A.
members need the tools necessary
to expand their roles and partici-
pate more fully in their locals to
have an equal footing with their
union brothers.

Basic education is required, says
the committee, for women to under-
stand how the union operates and
why it is essential to be active to
maintain a strong organization.

The women’s committee wants to
be involved in the planning of the
next women’s conference with their
recommendations subject to the
approval of the national executive
board.

To increase the amount of women
in the I.W.A., which is taking place
as the union organizes more non-
traditional service sectors, the com-
mittee says that organizing courses
should speak to the need of women’s
needs in the workplace and union.

“We believe that these are realis-
tic recommendations and we think
it is important to constitutionalize
the women’s committee to have a
formally structured, functioning

body,” says Sister Wagg.

David Tones, the national union's@®
third vice president, said that two
national women’s conferences, held
in 1997 and 1998 have spawned a
group of dedicated women that are
trying to influence change within
the organization.

“There is going to be more and
more debate on these issues at the
local and national union levels,”
says Brother Tones. “It is a healthy
and productive debate to have. We
have to look at our union as a whole
and assess the job it is doing in rep-
resenting women, as a gender minor-
ity within our union, and how the
involvement of women will grow
with their increasing numbers in
the L.W.A.””

The committee pointed out to the
national executive board that th
I.W.A. has an historic record of sup-
port for women. In 1964 it estab-
lished pay equality in the Coast
Master Agreement for women mem-
bers. In 1984, when the B.C. Feder-
ation of Labour wished to open affir-
mative action seat on its executive
board, the I.W.A. offered one of its
seats.

“The I.W.A. has always been an
evolutionary union and we think it
will continue to be one in the future,”
says Sister Wagg.

16/LUMBERWORKER/APRIL, 2000