Local 1-3567 signs up groups of private health care workers

IN THE PAST FEW MONTHS IWA
Local 1-3567 has been busily working to
sign-up private sector health care work-
ers in the B.C. Lower Mainland and
er parts of the province, including
ictoria. The local reached hiring hall
agreements with major private health
care providers, including Sodexho,
Compass and Aramark, as a means of
organizing the thousands of positions
that have been eliminated by actions of
the B.C. government, enabling hospital
boards to contract out various services.
Local union president Sonny Ghag says

the number one
issue for labour is
to reorganize
these workers and
“not let them fall
through the
cracks.” Brother
Ghag says that crit-
icism leveled at the
IWA for organiz-
ing in the private health care field is unfair
and unwarranted.

“We are out there in the private health
care field where it is much tougher to

Sonny Ghag

achieve what has been acheived in pub-
lic sector agreements,” he said. “We
believe that, over time, the IWA will have
the best agreements in the private field,
as we have already achieved in some
parts of B.C. and elsewhere in Canada.”
Legislation, introduced by the Gordon
Campbell Liberals, has stripped workers
of their previous collective agreements, as
hospital boards, faced with cutbacks, are
increasingly eliminating their public sec-
tor workforces in favour of contractors.
“We don’t support what the govern-
ment and hospital boards have done or

are doing. But our job has been to put
together a response to this widescale pri-
vatization and step forward to bring
these workers into our great union
where we can struggle to bring. their
wages and benefits up,” says Brother
Ghag. “We are seeing a trend by govern-
ments to shed public sector jobs. The
same thing happened in Ontario and
similar events are now happening in
Quebec with the Charet government.”
IWA president Dave Haggard commends
the local for “being out in the lead in orga-
nizing private health care sector workers.”

One huge merger

is in the works

Canfor reaches agreement with
Slocan to form second largest
North American producer

THE BIG FISH ARE eating the small-
er fish, in order to boost their profits

and control more market share. On

November 25 the Canfor Corporation

and Slocan Forest Products announced

they had entered into an agreement to

merge, resulting in Slocan folding into
Canfor. The result of such a mega-merg-
er would provide Canfor with over fifty per
cent of British
Columbia’s mar-
ket share in the
United States.
| Unless another
company steps in
anda bidding war
ensues, the
planned $630
million deal
which would pro-
vide Slocan
shareholders
with Canfor stock and see the purchaser
assume Slocan’s net debt, to make itone of
the world’s largest softwood lumber pro-
ducer — second only to Weyerhaeuser —
with an annual productive capacity of 5.2
billion board feet. Jim Shepard of Slocan
would become Canfor’s new head honcho.

“We're concemed about the impact
that such a merger would have,” says IWA
Local 1-424 president Frank Everitt, whose
Jocal has eight Canfor operations and three
Slocan mills. “It’s something that was tried
in the 1990's and fell through when the

P was in power.”

Brother Everitt says the local union has
the same concern now as it had then: what
will be the affects of such a merger on the
1WA’s membership? Both companies are
open about the intention that they want to
build bigger mills and that’s likely to result
in the closing of smaller operations.

Local 1-424’s Canfor mills are:
Houston, Isle Pierre, Ft. St. John, Fort St.
James, Chetwynd, Prince George
Sawmills and Rustad (Prince George) and

Frank Everitt

Bear Lake (Polar.) The local’s Slocan
sawmills are in Fort Nelson (where it also
represents plywood plant workers),
Vanderhoof and Quesnel. The other IWA

IF THE CANFOR-SLOCAN
MERGER GOES AHEAD, IT
WILL TAKE CORPORATE
CONCENTRATION IN THE
B.C. INDUSTRY TO
UNPRECEDENTED LEVELS
WITH UNKNOWN RESULTS

sawmill is in Grande Prairie, Alberta. It
also has logging operations on Vancouver
Island (Local 2171) and at Harrison (Local 1-
3567) and its Panel and Fibre Division in
Local 1-3567.

Canfor has developed major U.S. cus-
tomers, including Lowes and Home
Depot, markets which it has managed to

FILE PHOTO BY NORMAN GARCIA

= A new expanded company would produce over half of B.C. softwood

lumber exports to the United States.

hold onto despite the U.S.-Canada soft-
wood lumber war. A week prior to the
merger announcement, Canfor has its
countervailing duty dropped from 18.79
per cent (which most of the rest of the
Canadian lumber industtry faces) to 12.24
per cent, following a preliminary ruling
from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Slocan has 10 sawmills which produces
some 1.9 billion board feet annually.
Besides in Local 1-424, there are mills in
Valemount and Vavenby (Local 1-417) and
in Radium and Slocan (Local 1-405).

Local 1-405 president Bob Matters says
that it’s far too early to tell what the impact
may be in his local. “It’s something
we knew was coming all along,” he adds.

A TEST OF CAMPBELL’S FOREST POLICIES

The timing of Canfor’s takeover of Slocan
Forest Products, said to be engineered by
Liberal supporter and billionaire Jimmy
Pattison, is no coincidence. The proposed
corporate mega-merger will likely receive
the blessings
of Premier
Gordon
Campbell and
the B.C.
Liberals, who
have made
recent forest
IWAFILE PHOTO Policy changes
which would
help a merged company close down any
sawmill that it pleases, at any time it
wishes to do so.
The effects of the Liberals’ forest policy
__ changes, which sever the connection

between Crown land and manufacturing
facilities in B.C. communities, could be
coming to your mill town.

Both Canfor’s David Emerson and
Slocan’s Jim Shepard were up front in
their declaration on the day the proposed
merger was announced - a new Canfor
wants to build supermills that will
operate 24/7. That could mean that, ina
relatively short period of time after a
merger is approved, Canfor could begin to
close sawmills. It could also mean that
Canfor might play mills and crews off
against each other, as it looks to reduce
costs even further.

“This merger is going to make smaller
mills in smaller communities more
nervous,” says IWA Local 1-424 president

Frank Everitt. “Nobody knows what the
shake-out will be.”

He said that Jim
Shepard of Slocan
clearly knows what
the problems of the
mill in Slocan are
and hopes that will
translate into fur-
ther cooperation
with the union.
| Matters also notes

that Slocan’s Crown

Bob Matters lands for the Slocan
and Radium mills are distant geographi-
cally from Canfor’s Interior licences, which
may ensure those
operations keep
producing lumber.

IWA Local 1-417
president Joe
Davies says the
union is very con-
_| cerned about the
future of Slocan
Valemount and

‘| Vavenby mills. “In

the interim, Vale-
mount is OK, but
we're concerned about what decision
Canfor might make in the future.” Wood is
already being shipped out of the North
Thompson valley. The major mover and
shaker behind the deal is B.C. billionaire
businessman Jimmy Pattison who owns
over 19 per cent of Canfor’s shares,
through Great Pacific Industries Ltd., and
20.7 per cent of Slocan. The whole deal
must seek approval by the Campbell gov-
emment under the newly changed B.C.
Forest Act (see article left).

Joe Davies

DECEMBER 2003 THE ALLIED WORKER | 3