MAY, 1971

THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

1-423 TO EXPAND
EXECUTIVE BOARD

An officers’ recom-
mendation to expand the Local
Union’s Executive Board on an
area basis, was approved by
the delegates attending the

_ Annual Meeting of Local 1-423,

April 17, in Kelowna.

The purpose of the recom-
mendation is to give more
representation on the Board to
those areas having the greatest
concentration of members.
The areas to be chosen will be
determined by the Executive
Board.

‘In the nominations for Local
Union officers only two
positions were contested.
These were the office of 2nd
Vice-President contested by
Joe Portelance and Dennis
Richards; and the position of
Six-Year Trustee contested by

Jim Fofonoff and Alex
Wirachowsky.
The lLocal’s long-time

Financial Secretary S. A.
“Bill” Muir declined to run for

health reasons and another
long-time member, Dell
Welder, was elected to the
office by acclamation.
Other officers. elected “ by
acclamation were:
Ww

; : Schumaker,
President; ,Jack Welder, ist
Vice-President; Ray  Ot-

tenbreit, 3rd Vice-President;
Noel: Gooding, Recording
Secretary; Paul Sofonoff,
Warden: John A. Chernoff,
Conductor.

Bill Schumaker was also
elected as the Regional
Executive Board Member and
Jack Welder was elected Local
Union Safety Director.

Among the guests: in at-
tendance was Regional 3rd
Vice-President Stan Parker.

Following the meeting the
Local held its Annual Dance
which was attended by the
delegates, their wives, friends
and guests.

UNION MEMBERSHIP
UP IN B.C. BY 5.93%

The B.C. Labor Department,
in its annual report, states that
trade union membership in
B.C. increased by 17,380
workers from. 292,862 to 310,222
during 1970, an increase of 5.93
per cent.

The union Membership
constituted 42.7 per cent of the
total number of paid workers.
This compares with 41 per cent
of the total number of workers
in 1969, and 48.1 per cent in
1960. :

There are nearly four times
as many male trade unionists
than female in B.C. Of the
310,222 union members in 1970,
65,599 of them, ofr about 21 per
cent were women.

Just over half of the male
working population. in the
province are members of

unions, but only 26 per cent of
working women are unionized.

The report stated, ‘Unions
obviously have managed to
gain a smaller percentage of
the potential female leadership
than . the potential male
leadership... This may
reflect a lack of union interest
in organizing females, and (or)
some difficulty in organizing
females. The fact that many
women work for small em-
ployers (three to five em-
ployees) accounts in part for
their smaller degree of
organization.”

The report also said that
women union members are
concentrated in the service
industry and the service in-
dustry unions have the
greatest number of female
members.

ey aed

to run ae ge If he’s”
tion,

Many small national unions
carry the Canadian flag ‘‘as a
disguise for bargaining inef-
fectiveness,” says the public
relations director of the United
Steelworkers of America in
Canada.

A tiny percentage of national
union revenues are returned to
members as strike assistance,
points out Murray Cotterill.
International unions return
much more to their Canadian
members.

Only 3.5 per cent of total
expenditures by all-Canadian
unions were in the form of
strike benefits, compared with
49.2 per cent of the in-
ternationals’ outlays in Canada
between 1962 and 1968. The
figures come from reports by
the federal government under
the Corporations and Labor
Returns Act.

It’s a reply to pro-Canadian
union sentiments written by
Ed Finn, research director of

the Canadian Brotherhood of
Railway, Transport and
General Workers. 2

Mr. Cotterill concedes that
strike expenditures are low in -
national unions since so much
bargaining is in railways and
the public sector, where long
strikes “seldom” occur.

But it also reflects puny
bargaining clout, says the Steel
spokesman. “You wait for the
big boys to set the pattern, and
cash in later on the cheap.”

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