e Marty Gibbons, Local 1-417

Strategies needed
to protect jobs

Mill after mill has suffered production
curtailments and the permanent closure
announcements are about to increase. At the
convention delegates passed a resolution calling
on provincial and federal governments to
develop programs and strategies to maintain
mills and protect employment.

Local 1-80 peaeideny Bill Routley said the
closure of the TimberWest Cowichan
Lumbermill in Youbou this past winter saw the
end of an operation that had about 210 I.W.A.
members. In 1989 it had over 400 workers and
was fed from a supposably sustainable tree
farm license that had over 1 million cubic
meters, which also fed three other operations
which are closed today. x

TimberWest closed Youbou mill and kept its
TFL 46, as a clause tying the timber to the
manufacturing operation mysteriously
lisa peared from the license agreement in

In 1991 then NDP forests minister Dan Miller
tied the TFL to Youbou when Fletcher Challenge
created TimberWest but retained 51 per cent
control. He did so by created “Clause 7” of the
agreement which said the company could not
curtail peodneton or close the mill without
approval from the minister himself.

Routley said the I.W.A.’s members have been
“shafted” and expressed his frustration that
the government didn’t put Clause7 back in the
agreement.

He said the government blamed bureaucrats

Local 1-3567.

for taking the clause out but it, nonetheless,
was a government “screw-up.”

Routley said “when tree farm licenses were
initially put in place, the 1.W.A. and other
organizations supported that because they
were put in place for community stability.”

He said the union has a responsibility to
carry on the fight for the Youbou workers “even
though they’re not here to defend themselves.”

“We have a job as a union to be responsible
and try and take action against the government
that was so irresponsible and cost those workers
their jobs,” he added.

Gary Kobayashi of Local 2171 said the B.C.
industry is positioning itself for a round of mill
closures.

He said there are no “ifs ands or buts about it.”

“Now they are taking this countervail duty
and then they’re gonna use it as an excuse to
start wiping out mill after mill,” he added.

He also said the I.W.A. also has to be involved
in government programs to avoid federal
programs that are of little use.

Kobayashi said in addition to requesting
government action, the union has to develop a
fightback campaign to counter mill closures.

Santokh Attwal of Local 1-417 said that

¢ Enjoying a lighter moment with national I.W.A. president Dave Haggard is B.C. Federation of _

Labour president Jim Sinclair.

e Following the resolutions throughout the convention was a delegation from Fraser Valley, B.C.

workers have to stand up for their rights and
not let mills disappear “because the more you
let it go, the more it’s gonna be taken away
from you.”

He said that I.W.A. education has to reach
out to the membership at the plant floor level.

Local 1-417’s Marty Gibbons said mill closures
should be called community closures. As a 26 -
year-old planerman with a mortgage, he said if
his mill closes, he would have to leave his
community of Salmon Arm.

“T think we’re gonna have a hell of a time
trying to convince Gordon Campbell, because
all that guy really cares about is the dollars
and cents and his big business buddies who put
him in there,” said Gibbons.

Local 1-424 president Fred Carroll said the
union needs to get more radical on the mill
closure issue and start occupying some of the
mills that are closing down. :

He said “what we need to do is we need to
start forgetting about taking people to court,
start forgetting about blaming it on the NDP,
and we need to start saying, you're not going to
move one stick of machinery out of these mills
until we have guaranteed that people are going
to have work.” &

10/LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 2001

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