¢ Gary Doer, Premier of Manitoba

NDP premier talks
to convention

At atime in history when the New Democratic
Party, both federally and in the EEOInCe has
been suffering declines, it was a breath of fresh
air for union delegates to hear from an actual
NDP premier of a province.

Manitoba premier Gary Doer, elected in the
fall of 1999, showed up at the convention and,
like every other speaker at the convention,
expressed condolences to the union for the loss
of Terry Smith.

Mr. Doer and Brother Smith were classmates
at the Labour College of Canada in 1977, when
Doer was a member of the Manitoba Government
Employees Union.

To the woodworkers in the audience, he said
the Manitoba government is on side in taking
on the Americans over the “political tariffs”
against the forest industry.

“Either we have NAFTA (the North American
Free Trade Agreement) and we have free trade
or we don’t,” said Doer. “We don’t want a
situation where a government can cherry pick
what they want to accept, under NAFTA, and
disregard other parts N. ‘A and go ahead and
have unfair tariffs. That’s not free trade and
that’s not our definition of a fair trade agreement
from Canada and the United States.”

“U.S. companies should be focused in on their
own forestry practices, on their own
modernization, on their own investments in the
future of reforestation in their own areas, on
their own preventative strategies and on the
devastating forest fires that have taken place in
our North American continent.”

Doer and other western Canadian Pee rieEs
met with 14 western governors in the U.S. and
gave them the message to quit promoting
political tariffs and withdraw the protectionist
measures to seek an open border in the trade of

lumber. @

¢ OFL president Wayne Samuelson said unions have to present alternatives to the right wing

agenda to their members.

Time to take lead says OFL

Ontario Federation of Labour president
Wayne Samuelson brought a message of
solidarity from workers in his province and said
that the tragic events of September 11 and the
passing of the I.W.A. national secretary-
treasurer Terry Smith “remind of us how
incredibly fragile life is and how some of the
struggles we face, as important as they are,
really in the scope of things, aren’t as important
as some of the challenges we face simply
surviving in this world.”

He said I.W.A. members in B.C. should look
at the Ontario experience closely because the
same thing is going to happen to them under
the Liberal government of Gordon Campbell
that happened to workers under the Harris
regime in Ontario.

He said such right-wing governments have to
“pay back their pals” and that “some of those
people have waited a long time, and they want
action fast.”

“The other thing that they do is drive down
the rates of unionization, the percentage of
workers in the economy who are represented by
unions,” said Samuelson. He said the reason is
simple to understand.

“We are, by far, the largest self-financing
opposition to any government. We have members
in every corner of every province in this country.
And in many respects, we form the strongest
opposition,” he said.

Under the Harris government unionization
rates have been driven down to as low as 26 per
cent from over 30 per cent.

“They do it incrementally,” he said. “They

take away successorship rights for public sector
workers. When they sell off those jobs, the
union’s gone.”

Brother Samuelson said the governmenti
making it easier to decertify. In every workplace

in the province, the employer has to post steps
on how to decertify a union, but there are no
requirements on posting how to join unions in
non-union workplaces.

The list of attacks on working people and
social services are many. It’s now harder for
unions to function, harder to get WCB appeals
and health and safety laws have been weakened,
he said. The government is privatizing hydro,
jails and health care. Private universities are
also on the agenda.

He said when Harris was elected in 1995, it
changed the Labour Relations Act in a month
without public consultation. It tried to change
the Occupational Health and Safety Act in an
efficiency bill — and the OFL caught them.

Samuelson said it’s time the labour movement
went on the offensive and start to present
alternatives to its memberships. He said there
is no doubt that workers realize that unions
don’t like Harris or his government.

“What we have to do is we have to give them
hope. We have to talk to them about issues that
impact them in their daily lives and at work,”
he added. Issues like health and safety, the 60-
hour work week, and health care must be
discussed in the workplace.

“It?s time to take the struggle to the
workplaces,” said Samuelson.

° Delegates from northern B.C. I.W.A. Local 1-424 follow the resolutions debate.

22/LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 2001