IWACONVENTIONO1

e Alberta NDP leader Raj Pannu

NAFTA a bad deal

Introduced by union president Dave Haggard
as someone who has “has carried the banner
well for working people,” Alberta NDP leader

j Pannu brought greetings to delegates.

e said when he arrived in Canada in the
1960’s as a school teacher in the small forest
industry-dependent town of Whitecourt, Alberta,
he taught many students whose parents were
employed in the industry. Those experiences
taught him about the een connection between
the community and the industry.

He spoke against the U.S.’s countervail
actions against the industry and said the
provincial party is fully behind the I.W.A. on
the issue.

“In Alberta alone, there are over 20,000 full -
time jobs in the forest sector at risk,” said
Pannu. “Over 300 communities across the
country face extreme hardships as a direct
result of the decision which makes a mockery of
the so-called free trade system.”

“To me, this dispute highlights exactly) why
we need a rule-based trading system that is
better than the one we have now,” he said. “It
seems to me that the North American Free
Trade Agreement has given Canadians a raw
deal on two counts.” js

He said the first count is that it has allowed
the U.S. to walk away from the NAFTA whenever
it chooses. The second count he cited is that the
NAFTA has resulted in a clear and steady
erosion of social and labour standards in Canada.

He said the gains that unions have made,

¢ igher wages, better conditions, safer
social programs,

g high
conditions and qualit
er attack because of NAFTA and neo-
globalism.
Democrats in this province support
greements that make the flow of goods
ders easier,” he added. “We do not

trade agreements that jeopardize the
people like you and other union
have won over the years for working

e IAM administrative assistant Rod Kelty told the convention his union and the I.W.A. need to work

for a North American marketing strategy.

IAM against U.S. tariffs

The International Association of Machinists,
which incorporates the former I.W.A. in the
United States, is in opposition to the countervail
and anti-dumping actions of the U.S.
Department of Commerce.

The IAM’s Rod Kelty was at the convention
to tell delegates, however, that “not every
woodworker in the United States agrees with
our international and my position on this thing.”

“There is enough wood, enough market in the
United States, for all the production to come in
from Canada,” said Brother Kelty. He said
over 40 per cent of the country’s wood
consumption is imported.

He said the American thirst for wood products
grows every year and there is enough market
for Canadian lumber.

“It ought to be coming in from Canada where
we have — where you have highly organized
operations, where there are well-paying jobs,
safety is in place, good labour agreements —
instead of places like South America, Malaysia,
(and) China where they pay cents on the dollar,
(have) no safety and (have) government-run
unions.”

“So that is why I believe that the issue
shouldn’t be an issue. It’s the employers playing

e Enjoying the proceedings was the delegation from I.W.A. Canada Local 1-85 in Port Alberni, B.C.

the game. Less than a week after the end of the
softwood lumber agreement in March, three
(U.S) mills went down. Less than a week! And
you know what they told the public, told the
workers? It’s because the softwood lumber
agreement expired!” said Kelty.

He pointed out that the tariffs being collected
from Canada are going “in the ass pocket of the
damn employers, the various ones that are on
the other side of the border, crying their eyes
out. Well, that’s bullshit!”

“You know, for too long, both sides of the
border have been fighting over market share,”
said Kelty. “Well, there’s enough for everybody,
and then some. We need to work together to
market North American forest products.”

Kelty said he and national I.W.A. president
Dave Haggard have had several discussions
and both agree more must be done on this
matter.

“What we need to do, we can’t sit by and
expect somebody else to do it for us — to resolve
these issues,” he said. “We can shape it. We
could mold it to work for us. And then and only
then does the membership of our unions have
some real long-term job security.” B

LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER 2001/23