Local 324 gears up
to take on Tolko
in Manitoba negs

When I.W.A. Local 324 heads into
contract talks with Tolko Industries
in Manitoba in early October it will
be out to get a new collective
agreement at the company’s sawmill
complex in The Pas and some
renewed and revitalized contract
language as ney apply to woodlands
harvesting and hauling crews and
contract truckers.

A three- year collective agreement
expires at the end of August,
covering at total of more than 330
workers.

Local 824 president Terry
Derhousoff says that workers are
determined to get a fair deal and
not give in to any concessions that
the employer may demand.

Union members at the sawmill
went through a layoff which started
on March 11 and lasted until April
27. Markets and mill performance
were given as reasons by the
company.

“Our members have made this
company very competitive and we
think it’s time to sit down and
negotiate a new contract that is fair
to all parties,” said Brother
Derhousoff. “We think that we can
do that as long as the company comes
to the table with an open and honest
attitude.”

The union completed a survey of
worker demands and a negotiating
team of national second vice
. Ree Harvey Arcand, national
™ fifth vice president Wilf McIntyre
and local financial secretary Doug
Northcott, will be joining with
workers — former local union
president Jim Anderson, plant
chairman Tom Kirkness and steward
Rick Ford and Norman MacKenzie.

Brother Arcand will be heading
the negotiating committee and
intends to see that Tolko bargains
in good faith. He has been on I.W.A.
negotiating teams across the table

mm the same company in B.C.

“Although they are a hard-nosed
company, in the I.W.A. we have
negotiated with them and we have
come to collective agreements,” said

Arcand. “We expect to see the
company bargain upright and not
move the goal posts once issues have
been dealt with and agreed-upon at
the table.”

The plant which employs 300
I.W.A. members, currently operates
on a 24/7 basis with rotating swing-
shifts of four 12 hour days. It

roduces 1” and 2” dimensional
umber up to 6” in width from 15”
diameter logs.

Although there remains some
uncertainty over future lumber
markets due to the U.S. - Canada
lumber tariff dispute, plant chair
Kirkness said “we don’t want to
hold (negotiations) for too long.”

He noted that business prospects
must be good for the company since
it is in the process of hiring new
workers.

In the mill, Kirkness said the
company has been more aggressive
than its predecessor Repap and has
been testing the limits of the
collective agreement.

In the bush the union is out to
stop Tolko from continuing its
“double-breasting” by putting union
bush workers right along side non-
union contractors at inferior rates.

These company practices have
resulted in I.W.A. contractors
working shorter years.

Tolko is the single largest
employer in the Manitoba forest
industry, having purchased the
assets of Repap in 1997.

It operates the sawmill in The
Pas in conjunction with a giant pulp
and paper mill in town.

The company has switched to a
more intensive rail-haul strategy to
eliminate log and chip hauling costs.
It has numerous transfer points
from truck to rail, dotting the
northern landscape along the
Hudson Bay Railway line.

Northcott says that the mills in
The Pas now receive about 60% of
their fibre by rail, up from 20% a
few years ago — a move which has

resulted in significantly less work
for haulers.

Be Sipe SS

ORGANIZING TRUCKERS

Since the union adopted its
“Organizing and Growth Strategy”
at the 1997 national convention, the
union has been increasing its efforts
at organizing workers in bush
operations.

Tolko has a virtual stranglehold
on what goes on in the Manitoba
forest industry, where it goes on
and when it goes on, said Brother
Arcand, who has had numerous
stints in the province since the
spring and fall of 1999, when the
I.W.A. got back on the ground
organizing.

Arcand said that when the union
began to organize, it ran into a
patchwork of non-union and part-
union contracts.

“Keeping the log and chip haulers
completely union has been a
logistical nightmare for the union,”
said eoanne underlying the fact
that in 1998, the local, agreed to
exempt some contract log haulers
from “Schedule A” of the collective
agreement, which required that
they be union.

“There was a feeling at the time
that the local could not help-a group,
such as the Northern Wood Haulers
Association, because that association
wasn’t 100 percent union in its
operations.”

As time progressed Tolko
continued to negotiate with
dependent and small independent
contractors, creating its own
patchwork of varying rates and
working conditions.

The independent contractors soon
realized their collective clout was
nil and the union took the tactic of
negotiating agency agreements,
providing a service for a fee, while
they negotiated with Tolko.

It was a form of negotiating that
has been successful in local unions
a Local 1-425 in Williams Lake,

In the spring of 1999 the I.W.A.
attempted to get an agreement from
Tolko to negotiate in good faith with
a number of trucking contractors
under an agency bargaining

° The L.W.A. is getting set to represent crews in bush operations as part of
major contract talks.

arrangement.
By the summer of that year it
applied for application of

certification of the contractors.

But after speaking with Tolko,
the union pulled its certification
from the Manitoba Labour Relations
Board as the company agreed to
bargain in good faith,

“One or two weeks later it was
evident that Tolko had no intention
of bargaining in good faith,” said
Brother Arcand. “In fact as soon as
they (Local 324) pulled certification,
Tolko mtanteds meeting with
individual contractors to get
contracts with some at the expense
of others.”

Arcand said that Tolko awards
some viable contracts to some
contractors to guarantee its basic
wood supply and “tightens the
screws on everybody else.”

“That’s exactly what they were
doing,” he said.

The union’s response was to apply
for union certification of the entire
Northern Wood Haulers Association
(NWHA), a group of 25 truckers. It
then took about two years to get
certification through at the board
for only two of 25 truckers.

Frustrating by slow wheels of
justice at the board, the local applied
to have a mediator brought in.

By the fall of 2000 the local got
an interim agreement for haulin,
under an hourly arrangement aa
an agreement to haul from Moose
Lake Logging, a dependent
contractor in the Moose Lake area.

The union has worked with both
the Moose Lake crew and the NWHA
to allow both sides to survive.

“We have just reached a settle-
ment with Moose Lake and the crew
(five logging contractors covering 37
workers) is back working for union
rates and now we have to work on
retroactive issues,” said Arcand.
“The Moose Lake crew has stuck
together. There’s a lot of solidarity
there and they have been very
supportive.”

cand said the I.W.A. wants to

continued on page thirty-four

LUMBERWORKER/SEPTEMBER, 2001/33