British Columbia Victoria should push company on jobs, says local Continued from page 1 “We want the general public to know the real state of the forests,” said Lyn Kistner, camp chair at Fletcher-Challenge’s Renfrew Logging Division where some 70 people are expected to lose their jobs. Kistner, who proposed the resolution, — said the local is also looking at more public activity to highlight the layoff and the need for the government to put pressure on the company to maintain jobs. The local vote is the latest expression of the protest over the layoffs which were announced by Fletcher-Challenge two weeks ago. Citing a shortage of logs, the New Zealand-based multinational said that some 425 jobs would be cut in a corporate rationalization program. It is expected to include closure of the Victoria Plywood plant and layoffs at the Youbou and Tilbury mills and the Renfrew and Caycuse logging divisions. The first 25 layoffs were expected to come at Youbou March 3 with more cuts coming across the other operations in April. Fletcher-Challenge president Ian Donald has maintained that “critical” log shortages forced the layoffs, but the IWA-Canada noted in a letter to Premier Bill Vander Zalm last week that logs were being exported by another company from the same lake in which logs for the Youbou mill omed. Ao cher-Challenge was also fined last year for its wasteful logging practices in the io this week, IWA-Canada president Jack Munro met with Donald in an effort to head off the layoffs. But Donald stated after the meeting Tuesday: “Nothing I’ve heard today would make me believe that we can withdraw those termination notices. Donald also refused a union request to hold off on the layoff notices until after the government makes a decision on whether or not to restrict exports of logs that Fletcher- Challenge could buy on the open market and use. The major companies have tradi- tionally spurned the open market, opting to obtain logs from their TFLs and cutting back on their operations when they are not available. gore: dae But that also implies responsibility, Munro told reporters following the meet- ing. “A major corporation, not only Fletcher-Challenge, if they are going to be allowed to harvest the public’s timber in this province, then they have to ... provide manufacturing jobs,” he said. : So far, there has not been substantial pressure brought to bear on the company to fulfil that responsibility although members of Local 1-80 are hoping to change that. The only thing the forests ministry has agreed to do is to conduct an audit of SN aE 46 to determine if timber harvesting was carried out properly according to a logging and management plan. Forests Minister Dave Parker said Feb. 28 that the ministry was currently selecting someone to carry out the audit and drafting terms of reference. The audit is expected to cover the last 10 years, including the time the TFL was held by B.C. Forest Products which Fletcher- Challenge took over in 1987. + * Provincial Notes Parker facing united demand KAMLOOPS — Forests Minister Dave Parker continues to be hammered with demands for a royal commission into the forest industry despite his testy rejection of an inquiry as only a “delay- ing tactic.” On Monday, Parker told a meeting in the Stockmen’s Motor Inn, the fifth in a series of public information sessions called by the forests ministry, that the demand for a royal commission was only “coming from environmental coalitions, the Opposition and Natives. “What a royal commission would do is delay and that’s the agenda of these people,” he told the 175 people who packed the meeting. But the call for the inquiry has come from far more distant quarters since the sessions began in Smithers last month. Parker convened the public meetings in the face of growing opposition to the government’s Bill 28 which proposed to extend Tree Farm Licences under corpo- rate control to vast areas of the province. Groups as diverse as the Truck Loggers Association and the Cowichan Regional District have echoed the demand for a full inquiry into the indus- try before the government proceeds with applications from a number of forest conglomerates to extend their existing TFLs or open new ones. They were joined by locals of the IWA-Canada and the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada who appeared at the meeting here.Feb..27. — _ “We were astonished to hear the min- ister say he did not believe there was any need for a thorough investigation of the forest industry,” said TWA-Canada Local 1-417 representative Warren Oja. “To us who work in the industry, the need is both obvious and urgent.” Garry Worth, president of the PPWC local at the Weyerhauser pulp mill, told the minister: “It’s not too late yet to ensure the survival of B.C.’s forests and our industry — we urge this govern- ment to abandon its moves to privatize our forests.” 5 In a brief presented to the meeting, Jim Biro, from the Kamloops branch of the Communist Party, called on the Social Credit government to repeal Bill 28 and to “abandon its plans to turn over the bulk of our forest lands to a few major companies.” The bill, he said, “passed through the legislature with minimum publicity (and) will. .. turn over an estimated $14 billion worth of Crown timber to a small number of multinational corporations which now dominate the forest indus- Toye Biro called for a moratorium on log exports until a royal commission inquiry has been conducted. Reject Hydro’s plan says CP VANCOUVER — The B.C. provin- . cial committee of the Communist Party this week called on the National Energy Board to “reject giving carte blanche approval to the present energy policy of the Social Credit government” which proposes private sector development of energy for export. behind you, on this issue.” Rancher John McNamer (far right) gestures to other opponents of the Cache Creek dumpsite during demonstration Feb. 24 against Wastech Services’ plans to dump 300,000 tonnes of Greater Vancouver garbage annually on a landfill near the Interior community. The protest included residents stopping a mock GVRD waste truck from entering the site in a symbolic protection of the area’s watershed and general environment. Distributed was a letter to McNamer, a spokesperson for Cache Creek Area Residents United, from Wastech’s lawyers threatening an injunction and court action for damages if the waste company’s garbage trucks are halted when the dump opens. Bonapart Band chief Terry Morgan also addressed the rally, teling the participants, ‘‘We stand beside you, not TRIBUNE PHOTO — BILL CAMPBELL The CP made the call in a “letter of comment” filed with Louise Meagher, secretary of the National Energy Board. The party had earlier called on the NEB to postpone hearings into B.C. Hydro’s application for extension of its export licence but filed the letter when Meagher turned down the request. The hearings are scheduled to open March 6in Vancouver and will hear B.C. Hydro’s application to extend its licence to export power to Washington, Oregon and California until September, 1990. In the letter to the board, B.C. CP leader Maurice Rush warned that the application was “no ordinary applica- tion” and would also involve getting a commitment from the NEB authorizing the large-scale export of power “as envisaged in the new policy enunciated by Energy Minister Jack Davis.” “In the view of the Communist Party,” he said, “the NEB should not give sweeping authorization to the pri- vate sector to build dams at every site in the province to export power to the U.S. We also believe that the private sector should not be allowed to develop power generation plants all over B.C. based on the firing of coal and natural gas for export to the U.S.” Rush also declared the party’s opposi- tion to the re-activation of the Burrard Electrical Generating Plant and called for a moratorium on the operation of the thermal plant, located near Ioco on Bur- rard Inlet. Earlier, the Central Fraser Valley Regional District and Regional Hospital District registered their concern about plans to re-activate the plant to generate power for export. Because of the geographical location of the plant, the board stated ina letter to Meagher Feb. 15, “any pollution gener- ated on Burrard Inlet ... moves east in the valley directly to our area. “We are particularly concerned about the warmer parts of the year when the movement of air may be insufficient to move pollution out of the Fraser Valley. Air temperature inversions can occur, trapping thick pollution in the valley and creating serious breathing problems for people with lung conditions,” the letter stated. _of government to ensure protection of Protect fishing industry: council PRINCE RUPERT — City council- lors voted here Feb. 20 to lobby the fed- eral and provincial governments to stick to their guns and enact landing require- ments for West Coast salmon and herring that will protect the fishery resource and industry jobs. The council motion followed repres- entations to the ‘city: from the United . Fishermen and Allied Workers Union ° and the Amalgamated Shoreworkers and Clerks who warned that the industry was threatened by U.S. negotiators’ demands and outlined their union’s efforts to defend their jobs. Until last year, export regulations were in place which called for processing of herring and most species of salmon before they could be exported. But U.S. processors successfully challenged the regulations before the General Agree- ment on Tariffs and Trade which ruled in January 1988 that the regulations consti- tuted an unfair trade practice. Although the ruling was not binding, the federal government agreed last year to drop the regulations rather than risk trade retaliation from the U.S. Since that time, an industry advisory committee has sought to devise new landing and grading requirements that would be con- sistent with GATT. But in talks with the U.S. earlier this year, Canadian negotiators quickly withdrew the committee’s proposals when they ran into U.S. opposition, prompting members of the advisory group to walk out of the talks in Washington. Negotiations are still con- tinuing. At the council meeting, both UFAWU representative Jim Rushton and Clerks’ business agent John Kuz declared that their unions would “not stand idly by as fish go in trucks to another country.” Rushton noted that the talks had shown the U.S. objectives in getting access to a vital Canadian resource. “Anybody who thought the Americans weren’t after our fish now know they are.” He said the unions would be seeking support among various groups and levels the industry. Pacific Tribune, March 6, 1989 « 3