LABOR

Campaign to block
mill closure urged |

Several laid-off woodworkers at
MacMillan-Bloedel’s Vancouver Plywoods
mill moved last week to establish a “Save
Vanply Committee” to press the forest giant
to keep the plant operating.

Ted Mitravitz, the chair of the committee
and one of some 370 International Wood-
workers members thrown out of work by
M-B’s decision to close the plant perman-
ently, said that the committee is working
out a program to put pressure on M-B and
would be seeking union and community
support in the campaign.

MacMillan-Bloedel, which had closed
Vanply indefinitely in December, 1983,
announced last month that the mill would
be closed forever. The company claimed
that the mill was Ss

obsolete and uneco-
nomic although a
local IWA leader
charged that com-
pany policies had
“sabotaged” the
mill’s future.

IWA Local 1-
217 has called a
meeting of all
members formerly
employed at Van- ’
ply for Apr. 18 at TED MITRAVITZ
which time committee members hope to get
the local to adopt a program of action.

The committee -has suggested a leaflet
outlining the issues behind the plant closure,
demonstrations, meetings with M-B _presi-
dent Ray Smith and a public campaign
using the company’s tree farm licences as
leverage to force re-opening of the plant.

“We want a plan of action and we'll need
support from the community and the Solid-
arity movement,” Mitravitz said. He issued
a similar appeal to the Solidarity rally in
Vancouver Mar. 31. :

Vanply workers and IWA Local 1-217
officers met Apr. 4 with Forests Minister
Tom Waterland in Victoria to ask for goy-
BR assistance in putting pressure on

But beyond an agreement to pass on their ~
delegation’s message to M-B president
Smith, Waterland offered little.

_ He did acknowledge that outdated mills
and plant closures were a problem through-
out the coast forestry but offered no solu-
tion other than the Possibility of some
agency being assigned to study the problem.

But as TWA Local 1-217 president Doug
Evans told the Vancouver and District
Labor Council Apr. 6, the problem is the
direct result of M-B policies. .

Evans charged that M-B had “sabot-
aged” the mill by utilizing only poor quality
logs and importing veneer from the U.S. at
premium cost.

“M-B just put the lousiest garbage
through that mill,” he said, adding that the
return from the logs was about 15 to 20 per
cent less return than other plywood mills.

Veneer was also imported from the U.S.,
paid for in U.S. dollars, resulting in further
losses, he said.

“Tt’s ridiculous — M-B has some of the
best stands of timber in this province and
they’re importing veneer,” he told council
delegates.

“The trouble is they’re exporting too
goddam many logs out of this province and
too many jobs with them.”

Emphasizing that the logs “belong to
B.C.”, he called on the provincial govern-

_ ment to “step in and say to M-B: ‘spend

some money on those mills or lose your
timber rights.’ ”” ee

“We can’t just stand by and watch plants
shutting down,” he said, ““We have to take a
stand.”

Pulp bill condemned

Continued from page 1
but its terms and conditions may be varied
by regulation of the Lieutenant-Governor
in Council.” :

Thus the cabinet could, having set limited
percentage wage increases, reduce them still
further at any time during the length of the
agreement and alter any other terms as
well.

Labor Minister McClelland introduced
an amendment during second reading
which added the provision that no collective
agreement so imposed could be in effect:
until a resolution supporting it had been
adopted by the legislature. But with the
government holding a majority, that provi-
sion is a formality. And the contract terms
can still be varied unilaterally by cabinet.

No other gov: -
ernment in th
province has ever
passed legislation

which imposed con-
tracts on the pri-
vate sector.

The legislation
was condemned
Sunday by dele-
gates to the B.C.
provincial conven
tion of the Com
munist Party which |
warned that the “ae oa
imposed contract ART GRUNTMAN
provisions were indication of the govern-
ment’s movement in the direction of the
corporate state.”

A resolution unanimously endorsed by
delegates noted that the bill was brought
down “in the midst of a mounting offensive
against labor’s rights, evidenced by the
attack on union rights and employment in

12 © PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 11, 1984

the construction and by threats to introduce ~
amendments to the Labor Code which
would -further restrict the trade union
movement.

It added that the legislation was intro-

duced on behalf of the forest multination-
als, “enabling them to take advantage of
price increases which their lockout had
helped bring about in the first place.”

Delegates demanded that the legislation
be repealed immediately.

The Vancouver and District Labor
Council also voted, in a resolution adopted
Apr. 3, to condemn the legislation “in the
strongest possible terms” and to pledge full
support to the pulp workers.

That the legislation was brought down
on the forest companies’ behalf was further
attested to by comments made by North
Island NDP MLA Colin Gabelman, the
party’s labor critic.

He told the legislature Apr. 2 that the
companies had “sent their lobbyists to the
government. _ :

“We all saw the lobbyists around the
building,” he said. “I talked to some of
them and they were honest enough to tell
me what they wanted. They wanted an end
to the lockout because there was $1 million
a day in additional revenue starting Apr. 1
that they were not going to receive — on
top of their normal revenue.”

In a speech to the house the following
day, Gabelman charged: “The government
is determined to bring in a collective agree-
ment that the industry is happy with. They
have succumbed to the requests of the man-
agement negotiators, prominent among
them being former Socred candidates.”

The NDP voted unanimously against the

legislation. s

‘tie.

The B.C. Federation of Labor
charged that the Socred government has
created “a new reality which is both
unnecessary and inhuman” and _ has
forced up unemployment levels through
its restraint policies.

“The provincial government policies
of the last nine months have brought us

the highest unemployment rates in Brit- -

ish Columbia, the greatest increase in
business bankruptcies of any province in
Canada and the greatest decrease in dis-

posable income among wage earners,” _
B.C. Fed president Art Kube declared in

a statement Apr. 6.

“How much more evidence in the
form of,human suffering is required

before this government will admit

failure?”

The statement was in response to the
latest Statistics Canada figures which
showed that 41,000 more people in B.C.
have lost their jobs since June, 1983 and

Improve code, says HEU

The 25,000-member Hospital Employ-
ees Union called Apr. 5 for improve-
ments in the province’s Labor Code to
get rid of “the outdated notion of
employer supremacy” and to put trade
unions on an equal footing with
employers.

The HEU sent a 24-page brief to
Labor Minister Bob McCellland urging
him to consider the union’s demands as
well as those of other unions,

“Tt is not enough to simply maintain
the status quo,” HEU secretary business-
manager Jack Gerow said in a state-
ment. “Workers deserve the same rights
and powers as employers and the-code
must be changed to ensure this.”

One of the changes sought by the
union would change the definition of a

Stevenson site picketed —

Members of the Carpenters Union last
week picketed a job site in Vancouver
where Ken Stevenson, the president of
Stevenson Construction and one of the
Pennyfarthing Corporation directors at

- the centre of the dispute over the Harbor

Cove construction site, is building a
$400,000 home — using non-union labor.

The union targeted the Stevenson site,
at 6650 Balaclava Street in the exclusive
Southlands area of the city, to expose
Stevenson’s claims made during a radio
interview that he is “‘a good union con-
tractor” and would not go non-union
even if labor laws were changed allowing
him to do so. °

The Carpenters also noted that Stev-

Socred policies ‘push
unemployment rate up

- ling for concerted action by the labor

that one person in five is dependent 0”
unemployment insurance or welfare.

Kube also noted that the new
increases in job losses were centred
Greater Vancouver and Victoria. “Thesé
were jobs lost because of the drop #
consumer demand and consumer 00
dence and because of the elimination ©
public service.” =

The government should change 1!
priorities and undertake projects that
will bring long term employment, he
said, citing as examples reforestation
programs, restoration of social services;
the termination of log exports cam
increased resource processing 400”
expansion of building-block industries
such.as shipbuilding.”

Kube stopped short, however, of ca

movement to force the government 10
change course, urging instead that
citizens work together on a project g
persuasion directed.at the cabinet.’

strike so that job action, such as work
stoppages over issues of. health and
safety, would be considered legal. Strikes
called during the life of a contract ate
currently illegal under the code. ie

McClelland and the five-member
advisory committee are currently review"
ing submissions prior to making amend-
ments to the code which are expected be
brought down this session. im

But Gerow warned that there was lit-
tle reason to expect that labor demands
would be reflected in any changes.

“The whole consultative process has
turned out to be a sham,” he said. “It
appears the minister has already made
up his mind on what he wants to do wit
the code and it doesn’t really matter what
trade unions say.”

enson’s use of non-union labor to build
his home throws into question the assél- |
tion in the Labor Relations Board deci- —
sion on the Pennyfarthing site. The
board stated in its ruling: “If Pennyfat-
thing were under the control or direction
of Stevenson Construction, the job
would not have been awarded to a non-
union contractor.”

“Why then, if you, Mr. Stevenson,
have control of the job site at 6650 Balac-
lava, are you using non-union labor?’
the union asked. ‘

It also emphasized that Stevenson was"
a corporate donor to the Fraser Institute,
“whose policy is the deunionization of -
the province.”

lam enclosing 1 yr. $140 2yrs. $250) 6mo. $80 Foreign 1 yr. $200
Bill me later ~Donation$........

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