Governments fail
workers and
communities

It is becoming more than
apparent that the former

per cent take back would do

OPINION
BY RICK WANGLER

litle for communities.

from getting both: Weyco
has sold its BC es oper-
ations, Timber West ontin-

out and Interfor closes mills,
exports logs and contracts out.
We can live no longer on
broken promises. Peoples’
lives have been an
communities have been rav-

agi
being killed vlfien injury and
suicide rates jum:
_We' ve got forest compa-

shore. If they get tariff
refunds under the Harper-
Bush: framework, more ipa

Beam enis have failed

Oey a! 4

to take political action to force
these issues.

Rick Wangler is the president
of USW Local 1-363 based in
Courtenay, BC

EDITORIAL
CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE

There’s good reason
to lobby government

— because it works!
Steelworkers’ lobbying efforts give
workers a real voice in halls of power

BY NORM RIVARD

THE STEELWORKERS UNION knows
how to get workers’ issues in front of polit-
ical decision makers. Most recently, as you
will read in this issue, our rank and file lob-
byists took District 3’s Stop the Killing cam-
paign to the legislature in Victoria. By the
end of a two week period, every single MLA
of the government, cabinet ministers and
non-ministers alike, knew the Steelworkers
were in town demanding an independent
review of government policies that have
contributed to the rise in forest industry
deaths. They all know about every other
demand our union is making as well.

To our union political action takes various
forms — from getting out to Ves, to support-
ing elections campaigns, to putting forwar
candidates, to supporting the NDP. To our
union, political action happens between elec-

tions and all year round. We just don’t cast
our ballots and walk away. As former
Steelworkers international president Lynn
Williams, a Canadian, i is fond ¢ of saying, poli-

tics are p

That’s why ‘the USW spent over a decade
in a successful lobby on the Westray Bill
(Bill C-45). Today an employer can be held
liable for criminal negligence causing the
death of a worker. Now we are lobbying to
see the law enforced to prosecute cases of
corporate murder. WorkSafe BC is institut-
ing joint investigation procedures with the
RCMP.

Wo Bole.

(aaron fe 1
Ontario or fighting to save jobs in Manitoba,
leat} a ee soni

the front lines of efforts to get politicians to
pay heed to workers’ concerns.

EDITORIAL

A sellout agreement by any standard

HE COULD NOT BUCKLE for George W. Bush fast enough.
Canada’s minority PM Stephen Harper is selling Canadian workers
and forest communities down the river with his so-called softwood
lumber “framework agreement” with the U.S. Just a phone call
from Bush excited Harper into capitulation: Canada would drop all
litigation including that before the U.S. Trade Commission, which
would see Canada paid back all duties and defeat the Coalition for
Fair Lumber Imports’ manipulation of U.S. trade law.

‘0 our sovereignty in

A STEPHEN

HARPER - GEORGE At the same time, Harper is railroading much of the industry into
BUSH AGREEMENT signing a deal that gives the U.S. sovereignty over future forest poli-
WOULD AWARD _—_cy changes that will be made to seek partial tariff free access to the
THE UNITED U.S. market. The Americans would be able to say yeah or nay over
STATES policy and price setting mechanisms in Canada.

SOVEREIGNTY, n the future; Aumann dlosammattion one Canadian governments’
FOREST POLICY

ee ee for ‘nothing more than short-term political deal making.

THE ALLIED WORKER JUNE 2006 | 5