Plywood Evaluator Reviews

HISTORY OF EVALUA

By AL BUSCH
Regional Plywood Evaluator

Successful negotiations of an accelerated wage curve to

apply to Coast Plyw

ood workers was reported in this paper

by Regional President Jack Moore two weeks ago. This settle-
ment, after several months of difficult between-contract ne-
gotiations, netted significant increases to those categories in
13 of the 19 labour grades in the plywood wage scale.

It also provided for a re-
phrasing of the Evaluation
Manual so that it will better
conform to actual industry
conditions.

Your Job Evaluation De-
partment would like to take
this opportunity to bring our
members, especially those
working in plywood, up to
date with regard to the cur-
rent progress of evaluation.

We reported in our first
March issue that evaluation

had slowed somewhat, and
that a large back-log of job
changes had built up and was
awaiting job study. The set-
tlement referred to above has
alleviated to a great extent
the disagreement which had
been a major cause of the
lack of progress in job study.

With the decks now cleared,

we would expect that the

back-log of jobs can be speed-
ily reduced.

EVALUATION STARTED IN 1955

Before reporting on cur-
rent evaluation progress, it
might be wellaq review brief-
ly the course ahd results of
evaluation since its,entry into
our plywood wage \problems.

Negotiated in 1955 in lieu
of requested category in-
creases, the initial study
which involved job content
interviews with more than a
thousand workers, in the

eleven large Coastal and Is-
land plants, consumed two
and one half years. This work
was carried out jointly by the
two-man Industry Evaluation
Committee, one appointed by
the I.W.A. and one by Forest
Industrial Relations Ltd.

A firm of industrial engin-
eers had been engaged jointly
by the I.W.A. and F.LR. to
submit a plan, to put Evalua-
tor applicants through a tech-
nical examination, undertake
training of the two selected
in the techniques and meth-
ods of job evaluation, and
give guidance to the program
through the first two plywood
operations.

HANEY

When the jobs in all eleven
plants had been studied and
job descriptions had been
completed, the jobs were
“slotted” or set out in grades
from 1 to 17, according to
point values. This means
that at this point, job rela-
tionships were established.
This does not mean, however,
that the new wage rates were
established at that time or
that they were agreed upon
between the I.W.A. and
F.LR.

The basic rate would of
course be the “floor” for the
new scale, and would eventu-
ally apply to all those jobs
which measured at Grade 1
but the increments or cents
per hour spreads between
each grade and consequently
the total extra wage cost to
the employers was still strict-
ly a matter to be settled over
the bargaining table between
the Union and the employers,
represented by the I.W.A.
Negotiating Committee and
F.LR., respectively.

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As most of our members
will recall, this was a hot
issue for more than one and
one half years. It became in-
volved in the negotiations

which led to the 1959 indus-

try-wide strike, and was fin-
ally settled in that year at the
termination of that strike. It
was a part of the Deutsch
settlement formula.

AL BUSCH

Plywood Evaluator

Although a minor sprink-
ling of the 160-odd plywood
job categories received little
or no benefit from the plan
at that time, because of a re-
alignment of the wage scale,
it is a demonstrable fact that
74% of over 4000 workers did
receive pay increases ranging
from two or three cents to
twenty-four cents per hour,
as well as the ten cents per
hour gained from the settle-
ment by ali sections of the
woodworking industry at that
time.

The average hourly gain to
plywood workers from in-
stallation of the plan was 4.6
cents per hour in 1959. The
spread between base rate
and the then top rate, prior
to evaluation, was 50% cents.
The spreads between pre-
mium jobs were as low as
a half cent. In one case, a
premiun: job category was
paid as low as one half cent

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over basic rate. Evaluation
then, established even
spreads of 4c between grades,
and increased the differential
between the base rate and
the top rate to 64c. It also ad-
vanced more than one half
the base rate workers to pre-
mium grades bringing in-
creases ranging from 4c to
16c per hour.

In the intervening years,
drastic changes in the content
of many jobs has taken place.
Advanced technology and
mechanization have increased
plant. efficiency to the point
where employers have been
able to reduce crews even in

the face wi SORES
production schedules. ‘
The adverse effects of these

changes has been reduced
considerably through the pro-
gram of re-evaluation of
changed jobs and evaluation
of new jobs created. The sys-
tem is designed not only to
set up equitable job relation-
ships at the outset, but also
to maintain them up-to-date
over the years. Since 1959,
350 - 400 he ed and new
jobs have Pay re-studied,
and the increases gained have
in most cases been substan-
tial, though not as spectacu-
lar as was re case at the time
of installation.

INTERIOR PLANTS EVALUATED

In those relatively rare
cases where an evaluated job

_has lost much of its original

content, there exists in the
Master Agreement a circle
rate clause which protects the
rate of the incumbent even
though the job is reduced in
grade. Three plants, new to
evaluation, have entered the
picture in recent years, two
in the B.C. Interior and one
on the Coast. These were
evaluated concurrently with
the coast re-evaluation pro-
gram and have enjoyed gains
similarly substantial. Appli-
cation to the plan has also
been made by a fourth plant,
bringing to 15 the total num-
ber under the program.

Notwithstanding the many
gains made, there has not
been complete agreement or
unanimity with all aspects of
the program among our
members, or for that matter
the plywood employers. True
to the tradition of our wood-
workers, there has been
much controversy on the sub-
ject. Along with the five ed-

ucational seminars held since
1959, there have been held at
least six delegated plywood
conferences by the Regional
ILW.A.

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All points of view, com-
plaints and problems were
freely discussed at the con-
ferences; industrial engineers
and evaluation experts from
other areas were brought in
to give critical review of the
Plywood Evaluation Manual
(parts of which were a major
point of controversy), and the
system in general received a
thorough going over.

A summary of the discus-
sions brought forward the
opinion, to a greater or lesser
degree, that the plan had
achieved substantial gains in
the application of the manual
but it (the manual) was not
well suited to this industry,
and was difficult to apply, and
consideration should be given
to changing it accordingly.
Also, it was stated that it did
not adequately compensate
for increased production re-
sponsibility particularly af-
fecting a certain few jobs.

Gains made through re-
evaluation have been more
rewarding in recent months.
This is due mostly to the na-
ture of job changes, with the
trend being. toward increased
content in the changed cate-
gories. As a case in point in
regard to the three plants
where re-evaluation was most
recently completed, 27 cate-
gories were studied with the
result that 20 of the cate-
gories increased at least one
job grade (4c), six did not
change, and one became red
‘circle, Results as beneficial
as this may not be obtained
in every case, since the nature
of job changes is not always
the same, and the instituting
of these changes is not under
_the control of the Union. We
do, however, feel that this is
a fair indication of benefits
we may continue to expect to
a lesser or greater degree in
the future, as industry condi-

_tions continue to change.

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