One of the honoured speakers at this year’s
convention was Jorge Gonzalez, the president of
the National Confederation of Forest Workers of

Chile, who was in Richmond during the entire
week of the convention.

He brought fraternal greetings from the 43
individual unions and more than 6,200 mem-
bers of the CTF. The CTF and the I.W.A. have
initiated a solidarity project to assist Chilean
forest workers. An education centre is up and
running in the port city of Concepcion, Chile.

“It is an honour for me to be present amongst
you here, among the labourers, the union lead-
ers, the union themselves and to be part of this
movement and to participate in it here in Van-
couver,” Brother Gonzalez said through inter-
preter Jimmy Watt.

Gonzalez said that since the military coup
which toppled the democratically elected gov-

ernment of Salvador Allende in 1973, the Chilean

labour movement has gone through a lot of
hardships.

¢ Jorge Gonzalez, president of the National Confederation of Forest Workers of Chile, thanked the
LW.A. for its support of an education centre in Concepcion.

CTF President Gonzalez pays visit

Today it is trying to recover its former
glory, said Gonzalez.

“Our country today is governed by con-
sumerism, by lack of organization, by lack of
respect for the environment, for the labour
movement or for workers themselves...” he said.

Gonzalez said the Chilean labour movement
is in a position that is similar to what the I.W.A.
experience in the 1940’s and that it still doesn't
have the tools to work with.

“It is very important for me to thank you for
your solidarity in our cause in Chile through
education and research and to organize our
labour movement in Chile. We find that educa-
tion is the most effective way to correct this
problem. What you are doing for us today, we
hope to be able to do for somebody else tomor-
row.”

He said that the people who live in forest
communities and towns in Canada and Chile
share much in common.

“What is different is the governments that

govern us and...the gap between these govern-
ments has to bridged where it becomes equal
throughout the world,” he said.

Earlier this year Chile elected its fourth
democratic government in the last 10 years.
Today only 10% of the country’s workforce is
unionized.

Chile’s central labour movement, the Central
Unitaria de Trabajadores, has met with the new
government and asked that it to keep the
promises that were made (and broken) by three
previous governments — those of respecting
workers’ rights to freedom of association and
the rights to free collective bargaining.

“Through education and more importantly,
through your support...I hope to go back to
encourage our workers to unionize and to put
forward the democracy that is taking place in
Chile at this time. It is not only for the labour
movement, but it will affect the country and
bring it back on its feet again.”

IAM Speaker

Continued from page twenty-nine

The IAM supported Gore, with the commit-
ment from the Democrats that they would be at

any table where decisions would be made affect-
ing woodworkers.

Kelty predicted tough times for workers if
Bush won.

He said “we don’t want to go back to the
Republican controlled White House administra-
tion and if we don’t get the house...we’re going
to see nothing but hell. The workers are going
to suffer.”

This past summer in the U.S. over 6.8 million
hectares of lands, mostly forests, went up in
flames during the worst drought since the
1930's.

He said communities, families, and the
National Guard were out fighting fires. Every-
one was there except for environmental groups
like Greenpeace.

“They want to live around in their little boats
and their concrete buildings while the wood’s
burning that could have been manufactured in
good paying union jobs,” he said.

In reference to the U.S. - Canada softwood
lumber agreement, Brother Kelty said the IAM
is taking a position that it not be extended past

in March, 2001 deadline.

“There is enough consumption around North
America to keep all of our peoples working on
both sides of the border,” he said

Fight right to work
laws says IAM

International Association of Machinist Dis-
trict Business Representative Leon Blocker
brought greetings from his union’s members in
the south where there are 34 local unions in 8
states, 7 of which are “right to work” states.

He urged I.W.A. members to fight against any
such “open shop” laws coming to Canada.

“Not only is it extremely hard to organize in
the right to work states, but it’s also a constant
battle in keeping your membership up. We have
to represent all the workers in the plants, but
they do not have to join the union and neither
do they have to pay union dues or pay for the
representation that they get,” he anid:

In those locals that the IAM represents, they
represent about 6,800 of 7,700 workers. He said.

the union has to constantly organize to keep the
membership up.

The IAM’s southern operations, which include
sawmill workers, plywood workers, tobacco
workers, aerospace workers and the trucking
industry have various high performance work
organizations.

The union is working with several companies,
including Weyerhaeuser which signed an HPWO
agreement in 1994.

The union and the company leadership did a

week of training at
the IAM’s educa- |
tion centre in Mary- |
land. The union has
three large Weyco
operations in
Arkansas and
Oklahoma under
one contract where
it is working to get
the HPWO in place
to cover forestry
operations. The
IAM crews in those
operations want
some financial
resources from the
employer to take on additional duties.

He said the locals are trying to secure and
grow jobs in their operations. In the south
there’s a lot of wood that’s coming on line to
harvest in the next 5-10 years.

“Someone’s going to process those trees and
we want it to be our members and actually
expand and grow our membership and we think
that’s a good opportunity.” he said.

He encouraged exchange visits between I.W.A.
and IAM members working for Weyerhaeuser
“so we understand what your problems are and
it also prevents a company from using one iD
against the other and they tend to do that an
awful lot.”

° Leon Blocker

a

30/LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 2000