be felt by
communities

When former TimberWest CEO Scott Folk
called for a meeting at the Youbou Hall on Octo-
ber 25, some people thought it might be a posi-
tive announcement while others saw what was
coming.

“Reaction was from one end of the scale to the
other,” said former plant chair and Local 1-80
business agent Rick Whiteford. “Once it started
to sink in there was a lot of hostility and you
can’t blame the guys, you are taking their liveli-
hoods away from them.”

He says the hardest part for the crew to under-
stand is that the mill makes money.

“Basically the way it boils down is that our
members in the mill don’t fit into their corpo-
rate plan,” adds Whiteford. “And they don’t
want anybody else to run the mill because they
dont eaut anybody else to block their export
sales.

Many workers have roots that run deep in the
mill and surrounding communities.

Third generation woodworker Korbe Hamil-
ton has had a job there since 1996. His mill-
wright father Brent has worked at the Youbou
operetion since 1968 as did his father before

The elder Hamilton is 50 years old while
Korbe is only 27.

“I got a wife and a 3 month old boy,” says
Hamilton. “I’ve been around it (the mill) all my
life. I always wanted to work here. I thought it
was a good, stable place that provided good
employment for my grandfather and my father
and I expected to be able to carve out a good liv-
ing out of this community.”

‘This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said,
predicting that the TimberWest Elk Falls
sawmill would be the next one to get hit. “I
think there are a lot of other companies like
Weyerhaeuser and others in this that are just
sitting back to see what TimberWest does, what
they get away with. And I think they’re going to
follow suit.”
“If we don’t put a stop to this now I think a lot
of guys are going to be going ‘Geez, I wish we
could have got on board with Youbou when they

e Twenty-seven year old Korbe Hamilton is a third generation woodworker at the Youbou sawmill.

where asking for help’ because they’re going to
be next, I think.”

TimberWest has done a persuasive job of con-
vincing its loggers that they will keep their jobs
if it can continue to export logs.

“I think it’s far more sustainable if we take a
more balanced approach now — feed our local
mills with logs and that way everyone will keep
working longer in the long-run,” said Hamilton.

“I think that TimberWest has got to wake up.
They don’t know what they’re up against,” he
added. “I think our motivation is much stronger,
knowing that we know each other. We know
we're going to stick together. It’s a community
here fighting against a bunch of faceless share-

holders.”

Local 1-80 member Jurgen Adelborg, an
employee in the mill since 1959, told the Lum-
berworker that “ten years ago they told us they
were good for the community (and) for people
working in the industry.”

“They no longer want to be in the sawmill
business or the remanufacturing business. They

Youbou Workers

continued from page six

to put forward an enhanced severance package
which would see the majority of the crew lose
their jobs with nowhere to go.

Then in May, Mill and Timber appeared on
the scene to talk with TimberWest.

The crew looked at the new bidder as a savior
for the mill.

“We told him (Mill and Timber senior vice
president David Gray) that we weren’t into
negotiating severance or bridging packages, we
were interested in running the mill.”

“My impression is that they wanted to run
the mill and that’s what we wanted. It was
going to be a win-win for both sides. We knew
going in that they (Mill and Timber) run things
Tean as we talked with other I.W.A. locals,” said
Whiteford.

In the end, TimberWest said the company
didn’t offer enough money. Mill and Timber told
the local union that it couldn’t get the price tag
off of TimberWest.

The local was convinced of the inevitable.

“Wherever they can get the quickest buck or
wherever the money is — that’s where they’ll
go,” said Whiteford.

LOCAL RALLIES SUPPORT

The local union has rallied considerable sup
ort behind the workers at the Youbou sawmill.
‘own councils in Lake Cowichan, North

Cowichan, Duncan and Ladysmith and the

Cowichan Valley Regional District have had

presentations made to them by Local 1-80 and

they have all come on side, writing letters to the
federal government’s Minister of International

Trade Pierre Pettigrew and Jim Doyle, then

Forest Minister of B.C.

On November 7, the local planned a protest
rally to coincide with a quarterly manage-
ment/labour meeting at the Honeymoon Bay
division.

They set up an information line on the main
drag in Lake Cowichan and leafleted citizens
and logging trucks coming out of the valley.

Scott Folk, returning from the meeting, made
it as far as Mesachie Lake before a helicopter
took him out.

On November 22, 2000 a broad-based group
calling itself the Cowichan Community Forest
Survival Coalition met at the Mercury Hall in
Duncan to begin a higher visibility campaign to
save the mill.

At the meeting were local politicians includ-
ing the Mayor of Lake Cowichan and the CVRD
director, I.W.A. members, representatives of the
CEP from the Elk Falls pulp mill in Campbell
River, pulp workers from Crofton, union fisher-
man, NDP MLA Jan Pullinger and federal NDP
candidates.

The coalition planned a series of activities,
including an effort to surround log booms being
towed from Shoal Island down to U.S. cus-
tomers.

“They (TimberWest) got word of it somehow
and they moved most of the logs to the north
arm of the Fraser River,” said Whiteford.

The coalition has held numerous protests to
get the word out. During the federal election it
brought the issue forward at an all candidates
meetings. On November 18 the coalition sent
over 150 people to protest against the federal
Liberals as Jean Chretien was at a political
rally for environment minister David Anderson
in Victoria.

“So far we’ve been getting good local coverage
and coverage on Vancouver Island,” said White-
ford. “But we need to make Vancouver more
aware and the rest of the country aware.”

just strictly want to cut the logs and ship it out
of the country - no questions asked,” he added.

Local remanufacturers like the Centurion
Lumber heat treatment facility, the Karlite
reman plant in
Lake Cowichan,
Paulean and
Plenk’s, rely, at
least in part, on
lumber that has
been processed at

Youbou.

Interviewed as
he counted logging
trucks leaving the
Cowichan Valley,
Brother Paul Har-
aldson, who works
on a cherry picker
on the boom near
the mill’s two
debarkers, said the
public “definitely needs to be concerned about it
because mills are going to be closing down more
and more. They’re going to have problems with
pulp mill closing down. People can stick their
heads in the sand and ignore it — it will hap-
pen, it’s just a matter of time.”

“TimberWest is spearheading a movement to
export all of the logs out of B.C.,” he added, pre-
dicting stress on the industry and more unem-
ployment down the road.

“We’re all high paid earners in the tax sys-
tem. You've got federal and provincial govern-
ments pointing fingers at each other. They are
not willing to stand
up for the people
who voted them in,”
he said.

Three-year man
Dan Verbitsky and
two- year man Mike
Berekoff, also seen
on Highway 19
counting logs leav-
ing the valley, are
both at the bottom
of the seniority list,
with few prospects.
Barakoff has a wife
and two young chil-
dren. Verbitsky and
his girlfriend are
making plans to settle down.

“Over the past seven years I’ve been bouncing
around to various jobs (in the industry) and
that’s all due to the fact of lumber supply and
the shortage of it for some of the smaller places
I’ve worked for,” he said.

“As long as these logs are exported and not
processed here, that’s less jobs for everyone,” he
said.

Barakoff said that “it looks like everybody is
behind us” as another driver honked their horn.

ef
e Paul Haraldson

e Jurgen Adelborg

LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 2000/7