‘Re-open forest contract’

By MAURICE RUSH

There is a widespread
ferment among B.C.’s
woodworkers who are
feeling the pinch of rising
living costs, higher taxes
and interest rates and the
declining value of the
paycheck they get under
the industry-wide contract
signed last year.

In recent weeks, in plant after
plant all over the province, there
have been wildcat actions and
demands from many locals that
the contract be reopened and
renegotiated to provide for a
substantial interim wage
increase this year. The present
contract is not due to be opened
until 1970 - but with the value of
the paycheck declining rapidly,
woodworkers are coming to the
conclusion they can't wait that
long.

Woodworkers are now highly
critical of the inadequate
settlement signed by the leader-
ship of the IWA last year. They
point not only to the declining
value of the dollar they get, but
also to the exhorbitant profits
being made by the industry this
year and the widespread unem-
ployment suffered by thousands
of woodworkers as a result of
the heavy snow and the log
shortage due to the wholesale
export of raw logs by the forest
monopolies, who have found this
an additional source of exhor-
bitant profits.

They also point to the fact that
the present contract with the
boss loggers provides for
reopening of the contract if both
sides agree. They say that the
case for reopening the contract is
overwhelming.

Woodworkers interviewed by
the Pacific Tribune have called
for a rank and file movement
throughout the industry to
demand a re-opening of the
contract now with a view to
winning a substantial wage
increase and other changes
made necessary by develop-
ments in the industry.

PROFITS ZOOM

While woodworkers are frozen
to last year’s contract the
lumber bosses are enjoying a
profit bonanza what with
booming markets and monopoly-
fixed prices.

In 1968 corporate profits in
Canada showed a 15 per cent
rise. But the forest companies
in B.C. have enjoyed the largest
profits in 1968 than any other
sector of the Canadian economy.
Here are only two of many
examples reported in the press
in recent weeks:

® B.C. Forest Products
chairman T.N. Beaupre said ina
report to the shareholders two
weeks ago that profits of the
company in 1968 increased by 37
per cent. This company, which
was recently taken over by
Noranda Mines Ltd.. and the
U.S. Mead Corporation,
reported that its net sales for
1968 amounted to $118.7 million.
setting a new record for the
company and surpassing the
previous vear's sales by 11 per
cent.

¢ MacMillan Bloedel. the giant
of the forest industry in B.C..
announced recently in an annual

report by J.V. Clyne that sales
and other income amounted to
$584,490,606 in 1968 - an increase
of eight per cent from 1967. The
company reported a net profit
after deductions of $36,189,606.

This is beside some $38.9
million set aside by the company
for depreciation, depletion and
amortization. The report said
that the company invested some
$200 million for a plant at Pine
Hill, Alabama and expansion at
Powell River - undoubtedly out
of the super profits it is making.

All indications are that 1969
will be an even better year for
the giant forest monopolies than
1968 - and the workers must take
action to get a share of it - not
next year but now.

END LOG EXPORT

Another problem which has hit
the workers in the forest
industry hard this year have
been mass layoffs due to the log
shortage.

One important lesson being
driven home to every wood-
worker as a result of the crisis
caused by the lack of logs is that
whatever use is made of the raw
logs in B.C. determines whether
there will be jobs in the industry
and the extent to which employ-
ment will be available over the
long run,

The demand of the union for a
six months ban on log exports is a
step in the right direction - but
the export of raw logs, which the
late Chief Justice Gordon Sloan
condemned - should be placed
under rigid control and curbed
drastically as a matter of policy.

The need for an_ overall
redrawing of B.C.’s government
forestry policy to regain public
control of Crown forest lands and
to sharply intensify the use made
of logs - with the heavy emphasis
on processing in B.C. - is a must

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 11, 1969—Page 12

if future jobs for woodworkers
are to be ensured.

7

A recent issue of “On the
Beam” a small paper published
by the left caucus in wood, and
which is widely distributed
among woodworkers, summed
up the case for the woodworkers
in the following article:

ACTION PROGRAM

“There is no limit to the
rapacious greed of the B.C.
lumber monopolies. On the one
hand they are heavily over-
cutting the coast and interior
timber supply, and on the other,
they are at the same time
exporting around 200 million
F.B.M. of raw logs to Japan.
Having thus created a shortage
of raw material, they have
boosted prices sky high.

‘Now after operating at top
capacity and exporting raw logs
at the same time, they have
inadequate winter reserve log
stocks on hand and have been
caught short by severe winter
snows. To overcome the lost pro-
duction because of the log
shortage, which their own greed
created, they are demanding
that woodworkers give up the
long-established and hard
fought for 5-day, 40-hour work
week principles to work a 6-day
production week in the camps
and plywood plants.

“The I.W.A. has met. this
offensive with a very good set of
counter demands which include:
6 months ban on log exports: 3
month ban on production over-
time in the manufacturing
plants; Revision of government
forest policies to give a fairer
share of logs to smaller oper-
ators.

“This is an excellent short
term program advanced by, the

~~ ine barker

union, and militant action on it
will achieve results and develop
greater unity. However, it is
only a short range program to
meet a special crisis situation.
B.C. woodworkers need a long
term program to prevent such
crises from developing in the
future and to take better care of
their welfare, security and
future. Main requirements of a
long term program are:

“One industry - one union —
The monopolies have united
themselves into one single
powerful bargaining unit, while
we workers in the industry are
split into seven different unions,
the main ones being I.W.A., Pulp
Sulphite, and

Union. The greatest single

the Canadian.

organizational need of wood.
workers is to unite their ranks
into one single powerful bar.
gaining unit on the principle of
one industry - one union.

“A democratic organization

in which the various sections

such as pulp, lumber, logging,
ete. will have as much autonomy
as possible and all united in
Canadian headquarters - a
democratic organization which
will take in as members all those
working in wood without discrim-
ination as to race, creed, colour,
or politics.

. ‘Preserve the 5-day week
and a shorter work day — The
monopolies are now pressing for
the 6-day week as a preliminary
step toward the 7-day continuous

production process similar to
that of pulp and paper. A united
powerful woodworkers organ-

ization must fight to preserve
the 5-day week. And in order to
more equally distribute the vast
wealth produced in the industry
we must seriously go after the
shorter work day — a 7-hour day
for a start.

- ‘Public ownership of the
lumber industry — The vast
wealth of our forests and the
livelihood and future welfare of
B.C. woodworkers is much too
valuable to be left to the tender
mercies of the greedy lumber
monopolies to manage. Their
past and present performance
has shown that they are not [it to
undertake such a responsibility.

“It is becoming increasingly
necessary for woodworkers,
through their organization. to
begin to work out long term
policies and programs to assume

the responsibility for the
management, direction and
development of our forest
industry, Public ownership
through a crown corporation or
other form has become a
necessity.

“Struggle for these major
demands - the I.W.A. immed-
iate program - and for a long
range program which includes a
Single powerful union in the
industry, preservation of the 5-
day week and a shorter 7-hour

work day, and public ownership
of the lumber industry. will
develop greater unity amongst
all woodworkers.”

“YOQU’RE SQUEEZING MY PROFITS!”

UE NEWS SERVICE

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