-

THE WESTERN CANADIAN

LUMBER

AUTHORIZED AS SECOND CLASS MAIL, POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, OTTAWA, AND FOR PAYMENT OF POSTAGE IN CASH.

WORKER

Vol. XXXVI, No. 9

VANCOUVER, B.C.

5c PER COPY

=S-*

ist Issue
May, 1967

REGIONAL COUNCIL, F.I.R. SIGN

WELDERS AGREEMENT

By DEL PRATT

Regional Second Vice-President

Weeks of negotiations with
Forest Industrial Relations
and many meetings with offi-
cials of the Apprenticeship
Branch of the Department of
Labour have culminated in
the signing of the two Mem-
oranda printed on page 3.

Actual apprenticeship pro-
grams are drafted and have
been agreed to in principle
and await only minor changes
before signing.

The first of the T.Q. exam-
inations for millwrights is al-
most complete, with approxi-
mately 700 writing the exam-
inations. The Agreement calls

for a practical test; but so
far we have been unable to
agree with the Department on
what should constitute a prac-
tical test. There will be fur-
ther discussion on this point.
Another examination is now
being drafted and millwrights
who failed to get their T.Q.
on the first test will be able

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FIRST GROUP OF IWA ELECTRICIANS from the
the test for the Tradesmen’s Qualification certificate a
ver, May 8. Local 1-80 member Paul Ross is one o

board.

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WALLS CHARGES L.R.B.
WITH MISUSING POWER

IWA Western Canadian di-
rector of organization J. Clay-
ton Walls charged the B.C.
Labour Relations Board “with
vacillation, wanton neglect
and callous misuse of statu-
tory diseretionary power that
is tantamount to collusion
with an employer’s efforts to
defeat legitimate Union or-
ganization.”

Walls made the charge May
5 following the results of a
delayed count of a second rep-
resentation vote taken April
11 at the Holding Forest Prod-
ucts Ltd. plant at Adams
Lake.

The Union lost the vote 59
to 25. The Union had chal-
Tenged eleven voters, which
included a superintendent,
a foreman and an 89 year
old former company owner
and sundry other persons re-
cently “padded” to the com-

o payroll.
i pethe bitter labour-manage-

ment dispute at Adams Lake
dates back some ten months.

_ The vacillations of the Board,

a

Walls said, have contributed
to nothing but industrial un-
rest and strife and a flagrant
miscarriage of moral justice.
When the Board held the
Hearing into the IWA charges
of company unfair labour
practices, and found the com-
pany guilty, the Board should
have forthwith certified IWA
Local 1-417, The Union had a
majority of employees signed.
Further Union evidence
showed that a foreman had
actively directed the anti-
union campaign, both on and
oft the job. ‘Une Board how-
ever vacillated for more than
seven months before deciding
the employee was in fact a
foreman. During that time,
the Union was completely
frustrated and powerless to
take legal action against this
employee and the company, to
stop interference in the for-
mation of the Union, because

the Board had not declared
his status.

See “WALLS”—Page 2

lower mainland are shown taking
t Woodworkers’ House in Vancou-
f the three members of the examining

STAVE LAKE
TALKS
UNDERWAY

The 100 - man crew at
Canadian Forest Products’
Stave Lake Cedar opera-
tion at Dewdney returned
to work May 9. The return
to work move was recom-
mended by the plant com-
mittee after the Company
had agreed to meet with
Union negotiators com-
prised of the plant com-
mittee, Local and Regional
officers.

The employees, members
of Local 1-367 IWA, walked

off the job April 17 to pro-
test the atrocious manage-
ment attitude and inade-
quate safety conditions.
The men indicated that
their stay on the job is de-
pendent on the Company’s

sincerity to improve the

employer - employee rela-
tionship in the operation.

to write again as soon as the
second examination is made
available. :

The electrician’s exam is
complete and testing will start
on May 8th. Electricians who
have a certificate issued by
any province in Canada on
any of the following categor-
ies will be accepted:

Electrical work

Electrical work — construc-

tion section

Electrical work — Shop

section

Electrical work — Shop and

construction section

Electrical work — Shop and

maintenance

Electrical work — Installa-

tion and maintenance

Electrical work — Shop and

servicing section

Electrical work—Construc-

tion and maintenance

Electrician

Electrical (shop construc-
tion and repair)
Industrial electrician

2

DEL PRATT
See “WELDERS”—Page 3

aa NT a ENE SSRN AAS TSS ASSAD ISOTYPE ISTE Le Ln |

[WA OREGON MEMBERS
WIN 27-MONTH STRIKE

ROSEBURG, Ore. — The
early morning sun was wip-
ing out shreds of fog on hill-
sides above the Forrest In-
dustries plywood plant as
members of IWA Local 3-436
walked into the mill last Mon-
day.

“Man, it’s a beautiful day,”
one worker observed. “We’ve
been waiting for this morning
for 27 months. Let’s go to
work.”

It was indeed a fine day for
members of Local 3-436, who
were returning to their jobs
by order of the National La-
bor Relations Board — an or-
der that found the company
guilty of unfair labor prac-
tices that caused the strike
in January, 1965.

Forty members of the crew
went to work Monday and
others are on a preferential
hiring list for reinstatement
when the plant resumes full
operations. The company in-
formed the local union that
only the green end of the mill
will be in operation on a tem-
porary basis, because of ply-
wood market conditions. ~

Only a handful of the scabs
who took the strikers’ jobs
two years ago remain in the
plant and the local union ex-
pects them to be replaced by
members of the IWA in a few
days.

The dispute resulted from a
plot hatched by the Timber
Operators Council, a manage-
ment association, and Forrest

Industries in an attempt to.

set a “management rights”
precedent in the forest pro-
ducts industry. |

In November, 1964, the
company unilaterally abolish-
ed the jobs of two floormen,
assigned them to other work
and added their former duties
to the workload of a stock
rustler and glue mixer.

The union immediately filed
grievances in the case and at-
tempted to negotiate with
Forrest Industries on elimin-
ating the jobs and changes in
working conditions of the
other workers as provided in
the IWA contract.

With TOC representatives
as spokesmen, the company
refused to budge from its pos-
ition that it did not have to
bargain with the union and
that management had the
right to eliminate jobs and al-
ter working conditions.

When a number of negotia-
tion sessions failed to change
the company-TOC position,
the crew voted to strike and
walked out of the plant on’
January 25, 1965. Negotiations
after the strike began again
brought no change in the com-
pany stand.

NLRB Trial Examiner
Howard Myers ruled that For-
rest Industries must re-instate
the two floormen in their jobs,
with back pay from the time
their jobs were wiped out, re-
hire other strikers in jobs held
by scabs and cease and desist
from “coercing or restraining
employees in the exercise of
their rights to self-organiza-
tion.”

Attorney A. C. Roll, who
represented Local 3-436 and

See “STRIKE”—Page 2