The editorial board of The Chip-
per, published by New Westmin-
ster Local 1-357 of the Interna-
tional Woodworkers of America,
hasa very low opinion of those who
advocate a shorter work week with
no loss in take-home pay.

An editorial in the July issue
summarily dismissed the advocates
of the shorter work week in this fa-
shion: “There are nameless poli-
ticians who distribute leaflets and
write articles for ultra-left papers,
who say that the simple solution to

-the problem is a shorter work

week.”

To back up this suggestion that
only nameless politicians and ultra
left elements press for the shorter
work week, the editorial stated: ‘‘It
should be considered that even if in
1979 we had achieved that goal (the
32-hour work week), the result
would have been instead of 50,000
IWA members employed in B.C.,
we would have had 62,500 do the
work at 32 hours per week that was
done previously in 40 hours a week.
In 1980 layoffs still would have hit
20 percent of the membership and
would have resulted in 12,500 IWA
members being laid off rather than
10,000. Would the solution to the
problem then be a 24-hour work
week with the 40 hours’ pay?”

However, we should not get the

. idea that the editors are against the
~ 32-hour week on principle. On the

contrary, the editorial made it very
clear that the editors favor the
32-hour work week, but they do
not believe this is the time to fight
for it. Let the editors speak for
themselves:

“It is a goal stated in the policy
of the Canadian Labor Congress ”
and at some point in the future
some union will make a break-
through and establish those condi-
tions. A major negotiating break-
through such as that one, taking in-
to consideration the cost impact of

it, will take a major strike to
achieve. The number of strikes and
the length of them could, probably,
be refluced if the fights took place
at a time when the industry is
healthy and the employers want to
run the mills and camps. In years
like 1980 when the market is soft or
non-existent and cutbacks and lay-
offs are the order of the day, it
would be the height of stupidity to
get into a fight with the employer
demanding a reduction in the work
week with no loss in take-home

pay.”

Thus, those who advocate fight-
ing for the shorter work week in the
forest industry are not only name-
less politicians and ultra leftists.
They are also stupid people — ac-
cording to the editorial board of
The Chipper, headed by Gerry

LABOR
COMMENT

BY JACK PHILLIPS

Stoney, president of the New
Democratic Party in B.C. and ana-
tional vice-president of that party.
Just to set the record straight, I be-
lieve that Stoney’s position on this
question is in opposition to the
thinking of hundreds of members
of the IWA who belong to or sup-
port the NDP.

The 1980 report on Negotiated
Working Conditions published by
the B.C. Ministry of Labor reveals
that 40.3 percent of non-office em-
ployees in the province havea work
day shorter than eight hours, usual-
ly seven or 7% hours. And
fallers and buckers, employed in
logging, already have a 612 hour
day.

What we have to ask at this point

is: When is the right time to take up
the fight for the shorter work
week? When the B.C. lumber in-
dustry was booming a few years
ago, with production and profits at
an all-time high, the leadership of
the IWA did not attempt to mobil-
ize its membership around this is-
sue. Now, they claim that market
conditions are so bad it would be
the wrong time to take up the issue.

In October 1979, members of the
Communist Party of Canada em-
ployed in the forest industry pub-
lished a program for the industry, a
program that was endorsed by the
provincial executive of the party.
These woodworkers are not ultra-
leftist and they are not stupid.

The preamble to the document
referred to the multi-billion dollar
five year investment program an-
nounced by the major forest cor-
porations in 1979. That preamble
made the following statements:

“The capital investment pro-
gram will feature the introduction
of new labor saving technology, in-
cluding computer systems for saw-
mill and pulp operations, upgrad-
ing of dryland log sorting facilities,
the streamlining of power boilers
and expansion and modernization
of mill facilities. It will also feature
the introduction of new equipment
to handle smaller logs, currently
the major source of wood.

“The new program will see the
elimination of thousands of exist-
ing jobs and the displacement of
many workers. Centres like Port
Alberni will be particularly hard

hit. It will also, at the same time, -

create some new jobs based on new
and expanded operations, con-
fronting workers and their unions
with many complex problems.”

Unless the membership of the ~

IWA take up the fight to have a say

Police powers for S and |

held ‘dangerous precedent

Continued from page 1

_ The one-person commission,’
headed by Judge Rene Marin, has
‘heard testimony from postal
management, postal security (S
and I) and members of the Interna-
tional Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers, Letter Carriers Union
and the Public Service Alliance in
Ottawa, Montreal and Vancouver.
The Canadian Labor Congress has
retained lawyer Tom: McDougall
who is acting on behalf of all

unionists before the commission.
When hearings opened in Ot-
tawa, the case of CUPW member

Alan Steele made the headlines

when he testified he had been taken

to jail by S and I inspectors and
held there for eight hours while his
apartment was ransacked, also by

S and | members. Steele wasn’t

charged after his ordeal and is now

suing.

Jeff Bickerton, CUPW staff
member and researcher in Ottawa,
said he “‘hoped that the truth about
S and I, particularly their abuses of
their investigative powers, would
come out during the hearings.

“We want the public to become
aware of the connection between S
and I and the RCMP, especially in
the Western region where about
half of the postal inspectors are ex-
RCMP,” he said.

Evert Hoogers, Vancouver local
CUPW first vice-president, ques-

tioned if, in fact, the S and I of-
ficers had severed connections with
the RCMP.

“They are all young and in good
health — maybe they are just on
special assignment,” he suggested.

“Since the postal strike in 1975,
S and I inspectors have become
very obtrusive in the Western
region,”’ Hoogers noted. “Before
that, they only acted on letters of
complaint from the public.”

S and I now investigate
employees on the basis of com-
plaints by supervisors, “definitely
making them part of management,
and one of the reasons CUPW
doesn’t want them to be granted

‘official police status,’’ Parrot
declared.

’ The proposal to extend S and I’s
powers has not received blanket en-
dorsement from local - postal
management according to Lloyd
Ingram, president of the Van-
couver CUPE local, who attended
the hearing in Vancouver.

“It’s obvious that the top brass
in postal management do —
notably John Prescott, general

manager of the Western region —
“but many of the local or line
management feel-S and I should
confine themselves to criminal of-
fences and preventive security,”
Ingram said.

Prescott strongly supported the
peace officer proposal in hearings

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 22, 1980—Page 8

in Vancouver, arguing that such
status would enable officers to
make arrests. :

CUP W intends to present an ex-
tensive brief at the end of the hear-
ings outlining its opposition in
detail to the proposal.

Already the Canadian Bar
Association has warned that a
“dangerous precedent” would be
set if the proposal were accepted

since department stores and cor- |

porations might similarly move to
establish their own private police
forces.

A still unanswered question in
the proceedings is the attitude of
the present post master general An-
dre Ouellet to the role of S and I but
some of the personnel on the com-
mission have indicated that the

_ government sees security as an im-
portant part of postal investigat-
ors’ work.

Notable among them is Col.
Robin Bourne, the executive direc-
tor of the commission. For nearly a
decade Bourne was the director of
Police, Security and Analysis
Branch of the solicitor-general’s
department which was originally
set up as the Security Planning and
Research Group which assessed in-
formation gathered by the Security
Service of the RCMP.

Although he resigned that post
in May, 1979, he is still working
with government in a security
capacity.

and some control over investments
in the forest industry, the new tech-
nology which is being introduced
will eliminate thousands of jobs
permanently. It is in that connec-
tion, that the question of the
shorter work week and opportun-
ities for earlier retirement should be
tackled.

The lumber companies in B.C.
have utilized a number of measures
to institute layoffs: extended
Christmas and New Year vaca-
tions, longer maintenance closures,
the dropping of third shifts and ex-
tended summer shutdowns during
which many workers took their an-
nual vacation.

Anumber of mills have cut back
from a five-day to a four-day week.
and some companies have institut-
ed more drastic layoffs.

So far, the industry’s major lay-
offs have been in the Interior, be-
cause of that area’s overwhelming
dependence on the shipment of
lumber to the U.S. by rail. Now
that housing construction has been
drastically slashed in the U.S., the
Interior lumber industry is reported
to be moving towards almost a
complete shutdown. On the coast
and on Vancouver Island, the
situation continues to get worse.

At the same time, according to
the latest report, hundreds of mills
in Washington, Oregon, Califor-
nia, Idaho and Arizona have either
curtailed production or closed.

It is against that backdrop that
IWA regional president Jack
Munro is quoted as follows in the
Financial Post June 14: ‘“When we
get through this downturn, we
know, and the companies know,
that the upswing will last a long
time. There’s a big, long-term de-
mand for housing. That’s why the
industry is hanging on to key work-
ers.””

What Munro is hoping for is that
the eighties will bring a big upswing
in housing starts in the U.S. For ex-
ample, it is estimated that 42 mil-
lion Americans will turn 30 — the
prime house-buying age — in this
decade.

Gerry Stoney, on the other

~ hand, is placing a lot of stress on di-

versifying the market for B.C. lum-
ber. The Chipper editorial, for ex-
ample, put it this way: ‘“The long-
term solution to the problem must
be to remove the dependency of the
B.C. forest industry from one
market — the U.S. housing market
— and spread it over as many mar-
kets as possible so that when there
isa downturn in one market the rest
of the markets will carry through
with as little disruption and layoff
for our membership as possible.”’
That should explain why Gerry
Stoney was part of a recent union,
industry and government mission
that visited the United Kingdom,
France, Belgium, the Netherlands
and West Germany to promote
new markets for B.C. timber.
Other trade missions have gone to
seek new lumber markets in Japan.
While we cannot fault the WA

Layoffs: some new answers neede

for B.C.”’ made these points a

for trying to break our depende
on the U.S. market, it must be
that the Stoney-Munro app!®
does not offer a rounded-out
tion to this major problem.
A new policy paper adop
the B.C. convention of the ©
munist Party of Canada,
entitled ‘‘An Economic St

the B.C. forest industry: :
@ Ten major companies ©
trol 85 percent of the allowable@”
@ Of those 10, five are fore
controlled: B.C. Forest Progu®
Crown Zellerbach, Weld
Scott Paper (U.S.) and Crestb10
Forest (Japan);
@ Of the five B.C.-based 7B)
forest companies, two,
Forest Products and MacMi"
Bloedel, are multinationals in ™™
own right;
@ MacMillan Bloedel 4
inates the forest industry in B-
terms of sales and numbers 0
ployees. It controls 31 percent”
coastal timber supplies, as ag@™
10 percent for its closest comPp¥,
tor. It produces 30 percent
coastal lumber output and 38
cent of northwestern mews
production. In addition, it has"
percent of fine paper product0™
32 percent of liner board pre dui
tion and 38 percent of co!
container production in
However, more than 35 percel®
the company’s income comes It
operations outside of B.C., 10) |
across Canada, from the U.S
from Pakistan, Ecuador, Tai
El Salvador, Singapore, Brazil
France.
To say that MacMillan B}
and the other giants who do
the industry cannot afford to
tute a shorter work week 4)
time, with no loss in take-
pay, makes no more sense
earlier claims that they coul
afford the substantial wage © |
creases and other benefits that W® ©
negotiated as part of the
collective agreement. 2
Along with the struggle ?
higher wages, a shorter work We
and better conditions, the w0
workers should take up the fight
place MacMillan Bloedel uit
public ownership, to be follow)
by a public takeover of the fore®

nomic base for a well-managed!
est industry and the planned expe
sion of secondary and process
industries. While recognizing ¥
foreign markets will be imporl®
for some time to come, we Ml}
also recognize that the fore
dustry (and the people of B.
now paying the price of
stranglehold that the multinatioly
forest companies have held 0%
our economy. This distortion ©
our economy and the absence
balanced industrial developn
has led to decline and stagnat
The answer is to be found in
policies, not in more of the sé

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9. Phone 251-1186 3

Read the paper that fights for labor 4

Address
City or town
Postal Code

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®
3
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