LABOUR AND ECONOMY

Learning Institute changes
supported by labour leader

Business and labour have gotten
together to work with the Liberal
government's Innovative Learning
Agenda, which was announced in
the last federal budget. It is the fed’s
intention to
see labour and
business work
together. So in
mid June the
CLC president
Ken Georgetti,
the labour co-
chair of the
Ottawa-based
(CLBC)
Canadian
Labour
Business Centre, and Warren Beatty,
the business, co-chair, let Federal
Labour Minister Jane Stewart know
that both sides are ready to move
forward to further the goals of train-
ing Canadians in the national and
global marketplace. Both sides
agree that it is time to get a new
Canadian Learning Institute to play
a leading role in focusing on early
adult and workplace learning: and
address other issues in the adult
workforce including skills upgrad-
ing, prior learning assessment and
recognition, recognition of creden-
tials, and the promotions of continu-
ous learning. The CLBC co-chairs
say that their
Centre is posi-
tioned to
enable the five
key constitiuen-
cies (business,
\abour, educa-
tion, provinces
‘| and territories)
to get together
<I on the issue of
a adult and work-
A push for learning place learning
and work productively with stake-
holders including academics and
researchers; sector councils; univer-
sities, colleges and training
providers; and community organiza-
tions and service providers that deal
with the public at large, including
older workers, Aboriginals, immi-
grants and persons with disabilities.

Ken Georgetti

Is the Sun rising in Japan?

New regulations allow more 2 x 4 competition in market

THE JAPANESE MARKET has been
in the tank since the spring of 1997
and there are no signs that it will
soon return to its former glory.

But some good news broke in mid-
June when Japan’s Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure and Transportation
announced the approval of 2 x 4’s in
the building of exterior walls and par-
tition walls in fireproof sensitive sites.

Any news is good news for long-
suffering lumber exporters in British
Columbia. Last year they exported
only $1.7 billion worth of lumber

products to Japan — way down from
close to $3 billion in the mid-gos.
B.C. lumber producers, mainly rep-
resented by the Council of Forest
Industries, have been lobbying
Japanese authorities for decades in
attempts to pry open difficult markets.
“It's been tough to’ break down
those walls,” says [WA national presi-
dent Dave Haggard, figuratively
speaking. “We really need the Japanese
market to recover and any improve-

ment is positive news at this stage.”

Because of the stagnant Japanese
economy, foreign lumber and logs
that traditionally flowed to lucrative
markets have been redirected to the
U.S. market, keeping prices low.

Two by four’s are now permitted in
three story plus buildings in non fire-
rated districts and three storey multi-
family units in Japan. That’s a far cry
from the mid-7os when they were
only seen in two stories or less.

Some experts predict that the new
regulations could grow the 2 x 4 mar-
ket by five to ten per cent a year, for at
least the next several years.

IWA Local 1-80 president Bill
Routley, who toured Japan in May of
1999, says that the wider array of
Canadian forest products have seen
more competition in logs and lumber
from producers in other countries in
Europe, Scandanavia and Russia, and
an increased use of engineered wood
products. In addition, Brother Routley
noted that Japan is training less car-

PHOTO BY BILL ROUTLEY

= Pictured are traditional Japanese posts, here made from Canadian logs, used in the Japanese housing market.

penters and construction workers and
is using pre-cut post and beam con-
struction. He says Canadian produc-
ers to link directly with Japanese
builders to create jobs here in Canada.
Routley notes that since the giant
Kobe earthquake in ‘95, which result-
ed in ruptured gas lines and disas-
trous fires, building codes in Japan
have come under closer scrutiny.
Many houses today, wood ones includ-
ed, have springs in their foundation
and earthquake sensitive equipment.

Local 1-417 president Joe Davies
told The Allied Worker that the union
hopes the changes in Japan will help
workers at the Slocan Valemount
operation, which restarted in mid-
May. The mill produces J-grade spe-
cialty 2 x 4’s for that market and has
applied for a permit to cut high value
timber. “The mill is not configured to
compete in only the North American
dimension lumber market. It needs
that incremental market in Japan to
remain competitive,” he says.

Sputtering American economy affects us all

CANADA-U.S RELATIONS are often compared to
that of elephant and mouse. The elephant doesn't
notice the mouse much but we feel every wiggle, mur-
mur and well...movement.

And the elephant is restless. The U.S. economy
faces severe impacts from a changing world economy.

ABOUT THE ECONOMY
BY KIM POLLOCK

The U.S. runs huge trade deficits, one of many
advanced capitalist countries that import ever more
from foreign manufacturers, especially from China
and Southeast Asia. China now produces 40 per cent
of all manufactured goods, in the world, due to its
extremely low wages and poor working conditions.

The U.S. exports currency to pay for them. As long
as bankers and corporations could profitably recycle
profits on U.S. stock markets, it wasn'ta problem. But
when the stockmarket "bubble" burst, that ended.

The market collapse exposed the crimes of corpo-
rate managers desperate to hide sagging profits -
reductions averaged 20 percent from 1997 to 2000.
The boom had allowed them to keep spending and
investing, in spite of falling profits — ironically, often
increasing manufacturing capacity in Southeast Asia,
further reducing those products, prices, making them
even easier to sell!

The bubble's collapse and resulting outflow of
short-term, profit-seeking funds also pushed down
the U.S. currency internationally. Hence the
Canadian dollar's recent surge.

Unlike the U.S., Canada runs trade surpluses,
meaning that we export goods worth more than our
imports. Higher-than-U.S. interest rates, higher-than-
U.S. unemployment levels and the low dollar itself
helped discourage purchasers of foreign goods, while
the low dollar helped Canadian exporters.

The Loonie is 20 per cent higher against the U.S.
dollar than a year ago. We can buy more — but only if
we have sufficient purchasing power. And there's the
catch: a rising dollar is like upping the price of our
exports.

Exported lumber, pulp, petroleum products, wheat,
cars all cost more and we export about half what we
produce, nearly 90 percent of it to the US.

Soa rising dollar, everything being equal, means an
export cut and that's what happened. Canada's exports
fell over 3 per cent in a year, led by a 4.4 per cent cut
in USS. sales.

Recent price increases for lumber, for instance,
help reduce the hit. But in the U.S. a falling dollar is
like a generalized wage cut, especially for manufactur-
ing workers — able to buy fewer, higher-priced
Canadian goods, you'd think they would be more like-
ly to buy U.S. firms, protectionist policies.

But workers on both sides of the border are smarter
than that. We want to end the softwood lumber
impasse so we can cooperate in expanding our mar-
kets, not shout across the border as profits and hot
money slosh back and forth.

That's why Canadian and American unions joined
forces to urge a North American wood-marketing
strategy as part of any lumber agreement.

Kim Pollock is the IWA’s Director of Public Policy and Environment

14 | THE ALLIED WORKER AUGUST 2003