Eight hundred die each year in Canadian workplace accidents

EACH YEAR ABOUT 800 Canadian
workers are killed on the job, according
to the Canadian Centre for Occupational
Health and Safety (CCOHS). And
another 800,000 are injured.

On this year’s April 28 National Day
of Mourning, ceremonies were held
across the country to mark those hun-
dreds who died and hundreds of thou-
sands who were injured or disabled
due to workplace accidents and illness-
es. Participating in those ceremonies
were affiliate members of Canadian
Labour Congress and its provincial and

territorial federations of labour, along
with some 137 district labour councils.

For the IWA, the Day of Mourning
serves as a reminder that much more
has to be done to make workplaces
safer and healthier places to be.

In British Columbia alone, about 30
forest workers are killed each year,
notes national IWA president Dave
Haggard. “Despite all the best efforts
and programs that have been put
together in the past, the levels remain
the same, even though there are less
people working in the industry.” The

union’s national safety council is work-
ing to find ways of “driving safety back
into the workplace,” says Haggard.

In many IWA workplaces across
Canada, union members paused to
remember their fallen fellow workers.

Nationally, CLC national president
Ken Georgetti took occasion to com-
memorate all workers killed or injured
and drew special attention to the front-
line health care workers who have
risked their lives fighting the recent
outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS).

“We must acknowledge and recog-
nize, with gratitude, the dedication and
competence of these workers,” said
Brother Georgetti. “For our sake, they
have achieved some impressively suc-
cessful outcomes, despite years of cut-
backs, downsizing, restructuring, priva-
tization and other forms of dismantling
of their work, their working conditions
(and) their workplaces...”

According to the CCHOS, about 16
million days of work are lost each year
which is equal to the work of 67,000
Canadians, annually.

Resource-based

communities at risk

IWA Canada and the CEP

warn that Liberal forest policies
a province-wide threat

TWO OF B.C.’S LEADING forestry
sector unions, the Industrial, Wood
and Allied Workers of Canada and the
Communication, Energy and
Paperworkers of Canada, have banded
together to fight back against the
provincial government’s forest policy
changes and have put together a joint
response to the Liberals’ community-
, destroying
measures.
“We want to be
| perfectly clear:
if the B.C. gov-
jernment
implements
these policies,
there will be
many, many
mill closures
and thousands
of jobs lost,”
said Dave
Haggard, the IWA’s national president,
when the joint statement was made in early
April. “Workers and their communities
will be left holding the bag.”

The Liberals plan to allow the auc-
tion of standing timber, combined
with a free-wheeling purchase or sale
of Crown forest licences or portions of
licences. They are also getting rid of
the five decades old “social contract”
between the government, industry,
workers and communities.”

“Wide-open buying and selling of
licences as well as elimination of mini-
mum cut controls creates the same
kind of insecurity,” remarked Dave
Coles, the Western Region Vice
President of the Communications,
Energy and Paperworkers Union.

“Timber auctions mean that workers
who have grown up all their lives in a
forest community and who today work
in an area that they know and respect,
will be thrown out of work tomorrow

4

Dave Haggard, IWA

because someone lost a sale,” added

Brother Haggard. Haggard and Coles
both said the elimination of social con-

tract provisions such as rules tying

“IF THE GOVERNMENT
IMPLEMENTS THESE
POLICIES THERE WILL BE
MANY, MANY MILL
CLOSURES...”

- DAVE HAGGARD
PRESIDENT, IWA CANADA

licences to manufacturing facilities,
regulation of annual allowable cuts,
minimum cut requirements and mill
closure review requirements, will cause
instability and dislocation. “These mea-
sures assure people that they can put
down roots in a community, raise chil-
dren, pay taxes and reasonably expect a

PHOTOS BY NORMAN GARCIA

= In November of 2000, IWA protesters were joined by CEP activists to
oppose TimberWest’s abandonment of the community of Youbou.

future for themselves and their kids.
The Liberal government believes they
can walk away from this commitment
and leave us all in a brutal race to the
bottom,” said Haggard.

“Communities from Port Simpson to
Port Alberni to Port Renfrew: from
MacKenzie to Cranbrook are all in jeop-
ardy....” said Coles. The two unions put
forward a joint response the Liberals
measures (see excerpts below) which
they took to public meetings in May (see

EXCERPTS FROM THE IWA-CEP STATEMENT

The IWA - CEP joint statement says
access to timber is a “privilege and not a
right” and “has to be connected to jobs
and other opportunities for British
Columbians.” Among the several mea-
sures supported by the two national trade
unions are:

¢ RULES AND LAWS — that ensure local
wood processing and other employment
opportunities to residents of resource-
based communities,

* TOUGHER RESTRICTIONS ~ on the export
of raw, unprocessed logs.

As the government was poised to take
away 20 per cent of tenure, the unions
only support removal or reduction on the
following basis:

© Closures and/or significant reductions
at timber processing facilities that they
‘own or operate;

© Repeated violations of the Forest
Practices Code, the Fisheries Act.

and/or the Workers Compensation Act;

© Exceeding or failing to meet maxi-
mum/minimum cut control;

* Continued export of raw logs.

article by Scott
Lunny page fif-
teen) distrib-
uting it to
union mem-
bers, _ local
governments,
| First Nations
and other citi-
zens. “We
hope people
throughout
this province
realize what the government is doing,”
said Coles, while Haggard said the unions
don’t want to scrap with the Liberals “but
if they undermine us we will.”

The joint statement says: “Gordon
Campbell's agenda might be good for
the forest companies and for
Americans negotiating the softwood
lumber dispute — they're getting exact-
ly what they demanded in exchange for
their support for Campbell.”

“When only the market decides, only
the wealthiest and most powerful
quickly gain advantage. Workers face
huge job loss and insecurity as compa-
nies bid one another out of business,
leaving only a few large corporations in
control. B.C. wood processors face clo-
sure as raw logs are freely shipped
across the (Canada - U.S.) border,” says
the joint statement.

Dave Coles, CEP

JUNE 2003. THE ALLIED WORKER | -3