USW

ger of NORMAN GARCIA

C) @ @ @ @
District 3 continues with its
The Steelworkers are putting pressure on the BC government and the
forest industry to take immediate actions and results are starting to show.

THE STEELWORKERS UNION IS TAKING every measure it is able
to in order to Stop the Killing in the BC Forest Industry. Since
last summer, when even getting a letter back from the govern-
ment was difficult, there has been progress. But much more

must be done in the future.

“Last summer we couldn’t even get a meeting with Mike
de Jong (BC Minister of Labour and Citizens’ Services),”
says USW District 3 Director Steve Hunt. “That has
changed. Minister de Jong is now listening to workers. He
may not hear us yet, but he’s listening.”

Today the government is leaning toward conducting an
independent review of iS ove pence: * that have con-

Deby

have taken place in the industry.

“It was a startling admission by one of
the BC government’s highest officials,”
said Hunt. “Now it’s time to form the
independent review of government poli-
cies that lay at the feet of increased work-
er deaths in this industry.”

Hunt says that means examining the
overall deregulation of the industry — from the severing of
the tie between harvesting Crown wood and manufactur-
ing, the loss of cut control and the industry speed-up, the
hauling of logs for longer distances, and the speed-up to
harvest the mountain pine beetle.

When de Jong was Minister of Forests he allowed forest
Gonaypamnis to pageon and sell-off crown licenses, wile

tributed tO

“That’s a hard pill for an Ber to swallow —
conducting a review of legislation it is responsible for,”
adds Brother Hunt. Hunt notes that at the Steelworkers-
sponsored BC Forest Fatality Summit on December 5,
2005 the minister admitted that the provincial regulatory
regime has not caught up with the legislated changes that

low-bid system for
timber. That, combined with a government-imposed
agreement in 2004, forcing longer hours and more con-
secutive work days, has been a recipe for disaster.
At the BC Forest Safety Summit the union released and
publicized a background paper entitled “Stop the Killing -
the Culture of Desperation in BC’s Forest Sector” which

24 | JUNE 2006 THE ALLIED WORKER