Political direction
continued from page fifteen

Ottawa,” said Haggard. “I want to have a party
that'll govern in provinces across this country
that represents workers and our families the
way we so rightfully deserve to be represented.”

National second vice president David Tones
said the union needs to “thoroughly review
whether or not we want to continue to belong to
a party that continues to disregard the needs of
working people.”

He questioned how the I.W.A. can continue to
support both the federal and B.C. NDP as they
get closer to environmental groups.

Tones said the union has been through thick
and thin with the NDP since the early 1960’s
and it is a serious issue to not endorse affiliation
with the party.

Santokh Attwal of Local 1-417 said the
membership from the operational level was
telling the union to stop supporting the NDP a
long time ago.

He said that if the union is to endorse the
party in the future it “must listen to brothers
and sisters (and) their needs, their wants.”

Local 2693’s Nathalie Galesloot said if the
union doesn’t like something, it should fight to
change it.

“Everybody in this room is an activist because
something pissed you off — so get pissed off
now and go after the NDP and get what you
need!” she said. “But abandoning the party that
you've supported over all of these years, to me,
is very difficult.”

Gary Kobayashi of Local 2171 said the I.W.A.
has been disheartened by the performance of
the B.C. NDP and is unhappy about the federal

party.
He said “I don’t think it’s a question of us

abandoning the party. The party has abandoned
us.”

Brother Kobayashi said it is imperative that
working pearl nave a political voice, whether
it be the NDP or not.

He said union reps are frustrated when they
ack their members to vote for the “lesser of
evils.”

“We should be able to go to our membership
and say, here is a party that stands up for you
— you should support them,” he added.

He said the left, which working people are
part of, needs to develop a vision which ordinary
workers can buy into and acknowledges that
the right has skillfully done that with its push
for lower taxation.

Local 1-80 president Bill Routley said that
other major parties “are clearly just hand
servants for the major corporate elite.”

But he said it’s unacceptable to try and fix
the NDP when party voices say they need to get
closer to the greens.

The speaker said land-use decisions like the
ones made by the Commission on Resources
and Environment on Vancouver Island in 1994,
saw the NDP not listening to working people in

forest-dependent communities.

Routley suggested that the foundation of a

tion

¢ Following the questions and answers on the topic of right to work were (I. to r.) national president
Dave Haggard, secretary-treasurer Harvey Arcand and third vice-president Norm Rivard.

new labour party may be the way to go.

Local 2171 president Darrel Wong said
“there’s absolutely no question that we’ve had
some problems with our own party.” But he
also said there are good things the NDP has
done which deserve recognition,

“There needs to be some effort put into
rebuilding the party, and if it’s got to have a
different name or if we’ve got to have a labour
party, I’m there a hundred per cent,” he added.

Wong was particularly critical of federal NDP
leader Alexa McDonough who visited the central
coast of B.C. a few years ago, yet did little if
anything, in Ottawa at that time to assist
woodworkers.

“We went back twice after that to try and
meet with all of the federal parties to raise the
issues of what was going on in British Columbia
and what was happening with the international
boycott of B.C. forest products, and quite
frankly, the NDP, federally, did absolutely
nothing,” he said.

“I went back to my local union and I explained
that to all my members, and I told them that
we weren’t going to put a nickel into the federal
party,” he said. But Wong also explained, to the
membership, that the union had to build and
revitalize the party and turn it into something
that does represent working people.

He said that in BC. the Liberal government
of Gordon Campbell is “not going to doa doa
goddamn thing for anybody that we represent.”

Al Plamondon of Local 1-405 said the NDP
has to prove to labour, what they are going to do
to help it. He said the morale for the party is low
out there and there is going to have to be much
work done to “try and gain our support back.”

He said the I.W.A. Executive Board should
come back to next year’s convention with some
hard facts about what the NDP will do for
working people.

Local 1-3567 president Sonny Ghag said that
this year, for dee first time, the local union
executive didn’t go to the membership looking
for support for the B.C. NDP.

He said, after the party was elected in the
province, labour male away from it and allowed
“so-called professionals to run the party.”

Ghag said labour has to get involved again,
take control, and send a message to those
opposed within the party, that it will maintain
a strong presence.

Joe Hanlon, president of Local 2698, said
that the NDP in B.C. will naturally get support
back from workers, because under the Liberals
they will witness hospital closures, school
closures, BAO ancl eekion of water quality
control, and other cutbacks.

He said that when the Harris government
replaced the NDP’s Bob Rae, the labour
movement in Ontario lost anti-scab legislation.
Now the local union is witnessing two long
strikes where scabs have taken union jobs —
one of those strikes is over two years old.

Hanlon noted that during the Rae government,
(1990-1995) the NDP worked to save the Spruce
Falls pulp and Baper mill in Kapuskasing, the
Atikokan sawmill in Sawape and the Algoma
Steel plant in Sault Ste. Marie.

He added that “we have to support our party,
we have to bring it back, we have to get into the
ridings, (and) get the people elected who are
going to go there (to the parliaments and
legislatures) with our interests.”

e At the back of the hall was the contingent from I.W.A. Local 363 in Courtenay, B.C.

20/LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 2001