B.C. to plan the policy

a new millennium.

INTO A NEW CENTURY

This year |.W.A. delegates
got together in Richmond,

objectives of the union for

PAGES 15-34

¢ AT THE NATIONAL CONVENTION in September were the I.W.A’s national officers. Left to right are Third V.P. David
Tones, Fifth V.P. Wilf McIntyre, First V.P. Neil Menard, National President Dave Haggard, Secretary-Treasurer
Terry Smith, Second V.P Harvey Arcand and Fourth V.P. Norm Rivard.

Convention passes resolution to
build up national strike fund

ne of the big topics at this

ear’s convention, held in

ichmond, B.C. between

September 23 - 28 (see pages

15-34 for convention high-

lights) was an amended resolution

that was passed to build up the

union’s depleted national strike
fund.

This year alone the fund paid out
over $7 million, reducing the bal-
ance to under $5 million. Recent
strikes have been costly ones.

The union spent nearly $4 million
to support workers at the Interfor-
est hardwood veneer plant in
Durham last year. A strike at
Atikokan Forest Products, in
Atikokan, cost over $1 million. And
the B.C. Coast strike of this past
summer cost the fund close to $3
million.

Those hits on the fund have left it
seriously depleted.

Convention delegates passed a
resolution calling for an assessment
of one half hour’s pay at the opera-
tion’s base rate, per member, per
month. The assessment, which will
gotoa nation-wide referendum bal-
Tot next year, would kick-in when
the strike fund dips below $10
million. It would be taken off
when the fund reaches a balance of
$40 million.

“The health of the I.W.A.’s strike
fund is what every employer will be
looking at as they prepare to take
us on,” says national president Dave
Haggard. “It is our insurance policy
that we need to make stubborn
employers back-off and negotiate

seriously.

“We have to keep our guard up or
we are going to get hit hard in future
negotiations by some pretty right-
wing employers that are out there,”
adds egeeard. “We have to back up
each and every union negotiating
team in the I.W.A. with a strong
strike fund — one that can with-
stand the economic battles that are
what strikes are all about.”

During the past 13 years the strike
fund has gone from a deficit of $1.3
million, to a 1998 high of over $18
million, to a current day balance of
less than $5 million.

Today the fund provides some of
the best strike pay in any union in
the country. That rate is $225.00

er week plus $30.00 per depen-

lent.

Haggard points out the fact that,
in each of the last two years, the
I.W.A. has undergone 19 strikes.
Between 1990-98 it had an average
of only 6.5 strikes a year. Employ-
ers are getting more aggressive.

“In the I.W.A., and especially in
Ontario, our union has undertaken
some monumental struggles in
recent years and those strikes have
seriously tapped our fund,” says
Haggard. “It’s important for every-
body out there to know that we have
to get the fund back into shape and
make it stronger than it has been in
the past. We've got some real fights
ahead of us down the road — not
only in Ontario but in other provinces
including B.C., where most of our
membership is today.”

A strike in the B.C. forest indus-
try alone would cost the fund over
$6 million per week.

“This time around we took the
industry on the Coast out for 8 days.
To hold off giving up concessions in
the future, our union has to show
that it is ready to hit the bricks to
defend its collective agreements, no
matter where they be — on the
Coast, in the northern or southern
Interior or anywhere else in
Canada,” says Haggard.

In northern Ontario, I-W.A. locals
are brewing for a fight with forest
companies over the issue of con-
tracting out.

“Kimberly-Clark has told us
they’ve got an open cheque book to
take us on,” says national fifth vice
president Wilf McIntyre.

“No matter where you go in the
country, our union is faced with
struggles. Whether it’s in the major
forest industry or trying to get first
contracts in the service sector, the
1.W.A. must have a strong strike
fund,” he adds.

the Fight For
bees |

i

oo SEF PAGES Six 10 ELEVEN) |

History Book
greeted by
[.W.A. locals

In September, at the I.W.A.’s
national convention in Richmond,
B.C., the union announced the
release of “the IWA in Canada — the
Life and Times of an Industrial
Union,” which is a 321 page text
and photo history book.

The book, which is authored by
labour historians Andrew Neufeld
and Andrew Parnaby and co-pub-
lished by the I.W.A. and New Star
Books of Vancouver, is an ambitious
account of the union’s history in
Canada.

Already local unions and individ-
uals across the country are snap-
ping up the books.

“If I may use a cliché,” says
national third vice president David
Tones, “the books are selling like
hotcakes. We are very pleased at
the early response from the mem-
bership and are trying to get the
books out the door as soon as the
orders come in. There’s no doubt
that many will have ended up under
Christmas trees this December.”

The book is a timely release, as it
examines a century of struggles of
woodworkers and traces the devel-
opment of unionism in the forest
industry.

“The authors have done a consid-
erable job in pulling together all of
the material that went into this
book,” says Brother Tones.

“We think that this book will
become a milestone for national
union histories,” says national pres-
ident Dave Haggard. “The book
touches, to some extent, on every
province where the I.W.A. has rep-
resented workers in the country.”

“As we were affiliated to the Inter-
national Woodworkers of America
from 1937 to 1987, this book shows
how our union and its predecessor
unions struggled to better the lot of
workers right across this country.”

The book traces the early radical
roots of unionism in B.C., including
the activities of the Industrial Work-
ers of the World, the One Big Union
(including the B.C. Loggers Union
which later became the Lumber
Workers Industrial Union), the
activities of the Communist Party of
Canada’s Workers Unity League
and the re-emergence of radical
unionism under the banner of the
Lumber Workers Industrial Union
of Canada, as the organizations
drove ahead to organize bushwork-
ers in B.C. and northern Ontario.

The book follows the formation of
the Congress of Industrial Organi-
zation and the separation of B.C.
woodworkers from the AFL to the
CIO, leading to the formation of the
Federation of Woodworkers and
then the founding of the Interna-
tonal Woodworkers of America in

The I.W.A. was formed during the
Great Depression and made signifi-

Continued on page two