4

EDITORIAL

MEMO TO YOU

By JACK MOORE
IWA Regional President

My Fellow Members:

_You are now the most important members of the
Union's Negotiating Committee in the effort to gain
acceptance of our 1964 B.C. Coast Industry demands.
Make no mistake about it, the delegates at the Wages
and Contract Conference made it very clear that these
demands are your demands, stating your actual needs.

The delegates at the conference demonstrated the
good old-fashioned solidarity that | had asked for earlier.
I am confident that you are as firmly united behind these
demands as the delegates were. Your part in the ne-
gotiations is to continue this demonstration of unity.
Let your message to the operators on this point sound
“loud and clear’ so that it rings in their ears at the
bargaining table.

The employers’ bleating that the “unrealistic de-
mands” were mysteriously developed out of dissension
is sheer nonsense. It is only intended to confuse and
prejudice the public. Elsewhere in this issue we supply
abundant evidence as to the falsity of this propaganda
concocted out of thin air.

The dictionary defines “unrealistic” as that which
has no practical application and exists only in the world
of fantasy. Now,| ask you. Look at our wage demand
of forty-cents an hour on the base rate! A competent
and impartial authority has found that it takes $100
a week to keep body and soul together in a family of
four trying to live decently in our province. The pro-
posed base rate will bring the base rate within a dollar
of this sum. Can anyone logically claim that this is
unrealistic? Think it over and use the job grapevine
to make this clear to all our fellow-workers!

When I’m down on the job, | hear nothing but beefs
about the way in which our members are being pushed
around by management. | am fully sympathetic with
these beefs because they are well-founded. The secret
motion studies of the employers, or “work curve” is de-
humanizing workers, and even causing many to suffer
nervous breakdowns. Coupled with this vicious speed-
up we see the introduction of new machines in both
mill and logging operations, often with the employers’
expectation that one man will do the work of two.

These changes are bringing results that hurt in terms
of painful sweating. What | ask you .to notice is that
both factors have enormously reduced. the labor cost
in the production of every 1000 board feet of lumber.
This gain for the employers has given them extraordin-
ary profits not now shared by the workers who make

the situation so happy for the operators.

In this issue and within the next few weeks we will
furnish you with all the facts about the exceptional
prosperity of the industry's owners. If you are not then
convinced that the employers can foot the bill for our
demands without any real damage to sound business
interests, you are not open fo conviction about anything.

Scare headlines, based on no established facts, are
attempting to prove that the demands will cost $26

Publication date of the next issue of the WESTERN CANADIAN
LUMBER WORKER is March 5. Deadline for ad copy is
February 27 and for news copy February 28.

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Bel BU ye i Wb

Published Twice Monthly on the First and Third Thursdays by
INTERNATIONAL WOODWORKERS OF AMERICA
(AFL-CIO-CLC) Regional Council No. 1

Editor . . . Grant MacNeil

REGIONAL OFFICERS:
President. .....-.-—--------—
ist Vice-President —
2nd Vice-President -.
3rd Vice-President ..

cretary-Treasurer
Poternational Board Members ....-

Address all communications to:

FRED FIEBER, Secretary-Treasurer
2859 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C.

TR. 4-5261 - 2

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cows. Jack Holst

Bob Ross

bscription Rates —.........-----.-- . $2.00 per annum
Suivertising Representative ...... G. A. Spencer

das Second Class Mail, Post Office Dept., Ottawa,
and for Payment of Postage in Cash.

21,500 COPIES 'PRINTED IN THIS ISSUE

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million. 1 doubt it, but even so, what represents a square deal for the workers in
this situation? We have totalled the profits of the large companies, as you will
see in this issue. We have also measured the net worth of the same companies,
indicating what they have ploughed back into the value of their investment. Is it
too unreasonable that we should ask for less than twenty per cent of a huge profit
surplus extracted from our hard labor and the natural resources of the province?
As | have publicly stated, a better distribution of wage income will do more for
the prosperity of this province than the fat bank accounts of a few.

My heart bleeds for the destitution of MacMillan, Bloedel and Powell River
Ltd., now stating that their employees should continue to stump up to build a big-
ger and more glorious empire for this giant corporation. Take a look at this com-
pany’s original investment and calculate the juicy returns which this investment
has continuously yielded. The story told by this company in the “investors’ bible,”
the Financial Post, is quite different than the one which they are peddling to their
employees at negotiating time. Could anyone regard such statements as promis-
ing good faith in bargaining?

We've got a good negotiating committee with you on it. If you do your stuff
on the committee, we'll get results that will make your living much more enjoyable.

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