, : Labour Jobs not the first priority for MB By GARY SWANN Some 1,500ITWA- Canada Local 1- 85 members, Mac- Millan Bloedel salaried staff and other supporters from Vancouver Island travelled to the legislature May 25 to support the multinational cor- poration’s plan to log the Carmanah Valley. MB proposes to set aside some 500 hectares and to log the remaining 6,000 hectares in the watershed. The company claims that the plan will preserve most of the unique old growth spruce as well as the tallest tree in Canada and the tallest spruce in the world, both of which are in the Carmanah. But environ- mentalists question the claim and call for an independent assessment of the Car- manah. They also emphasize that the only way to guarantee the future of the ancient spruce groves is to preserve the entire ecosystem. The Local 1-85-organized demonstra- tion in Victoria is perhaps the political high point in a long term campaign launched by MacMillan Bloedel to log in the Carmanah. Bob Findlay, MB senior vice-president for the Alberni region, sig- nalled the campaign in 1988. He was asked to justify MB’s concern that 100 jobs would be lost if the company could not log the Carmanah watershed when the company had just cut some 2,000 jobs from the region’s payroll through technological change and speed- up. In explaining, Findlay said that it was “inevitable that capital would replace labour,” but it was not inevitable that MB would lose some its forest base. The company indicated it planned to fight and followed with a strategy devised by Ron Arnold of the Centre for the Defence of Free Enterprise, a U.S.-based version of the Fraser Institute which pro- SWANN News Analysis motes “multiple use” resource policies. MB’s campaign included television adver- tising focussing on the forest industry’s commitment to sound forest practices and MB-sponsored junkets for Port Alberni Mayor Gillian Trumper and Ald. Jack Campbell — who had been endorsed for election by the local labour council — to | attend Ron Arnold seminars in Reno, Nevada. The campaign also included. provin- cially and locally-organized “Share the were closed down and there were no threats of court action to recover lost pro- duction as had been the case last year when pulp workers shut down an MB mill in Powell River. While 15 busloads of IWA members and MB staff went from Port Alberni to the rally, many members didn’t partici- pate. They remember the bitter five-month strike in 1986 in which MB brought in scab wood by rail to keep the pulp mill operat- Sa PS ES ee ‘MB claims concern for 100 jobs lost if the Carmanah is not logged — when it has cut 2,000 jobs in the Alberni Valley through technological change.’ iE A al ES EE TER CAT ORI SOT SB OS EE Forest” committees, a tactic advocated by Arnold. The Port Alberni Share the Resources Committee receives, at the very least, material support from MacMillan Bloedel. Together, MB, civic politicians and the “Share” groups, have played up the threa- tened job losses. The Local 1-85 leader- ship, which lost 2,000 jobs earlier and currently faces the permanent closure of an MB plywood mill with the loss of an additional 350 jobs, chose, rather than tackling the big issue of “capital replacing labour,” to collaborate with MB in organ- izing the rally to confront environmental- ists’ demands to save the Carmanah. An MB offer to use the company crummies to transport workers to the rally was discreetly turned down. All MacMil- lan Bloedel’s ITWA-Canada operations ing and pressed demands that would have significantly weakened if not destroyed the IWA. They see the shipment of top quality fir logs from the valley — while 74 workers were recently laid off and a further 280 jobs put at risk because the company, in an effort to extract contract concessions, runs low quality pulp logs through its plywood mill. They see a minimal effort in growing a second crop of timber to guarantee a future for the lumber and plywood indus- try. There is very little intensive silvicul- ture, including thinning, spacing and pruning, that would help grow wood for the sawmill and plywood industry. MB’s main second growth orientation is on growing fibre for the pulp industry. As the recently concluded public infor- - mation sessions on forest policy demon- strated, there is widespread unity among forest unions, environmentalists, Native people and small business operators in opposition to current provincial forest pol- icy and in support of the demand for a royal commission to review that policy. But as the Victoria demonstration indi- cates, there are also sharp differences over forest land use. The task for the IWA- Canada and the environmental movement is to resolve their land use differences and build unity. Unity is possible. In Sweden and the US., for example, there are between three and four times as many jobs for the volume of wood cut as in British Colum- bia. It has been done by concentrating more employment in growing wood and in deriving more secondary manufactur- ing from the timber cut. There is a basis for unity around a pro- gram of more intensive silviculture and more manufacturing. It would create more jobs and help the IWA-Canada to resolve the issue of “capital replacing labour.” It would also make its possible to retain some old growth forest without adversely affecting unemployment levels. But that kind of a program will require a change in the government’s current pol- icy and won’t be won without a struggle. The needed unity and struggle could be advanced by the IWA-Canada and the pulp unions sitting down with the envir- onmental movement and trying to find common ground on forest policy — to try to work towards a “‘people’s” forest policy for British Columbia. The fledgling Tinwis movement of labour, environmentalist and Native groups might provide a forum to help develop the common forest policy which could-guarantee long term employment in an environmentally sound forest industry. Gary Swann is a former researcher with the forests ministry and a member of the environmental committee of the Communist Party. GWU, right-to-work together on port project By PETER NORRIS and COLLEEN FULLER The Vancouver Port Corporation and the federal Minister of Transport have “defied all logic” by awarding the contract for wharf construction at the United Grain _Growers Terminal and Vancouver Har- bour to a non-union firm, JJM. Construc- tion. David Flynn, business agent for Local 2404 of the Pile Drivers, Divers, Bridge Dock and Wharf Builders, said there were “shock waves throughout the entire indus- try” when the contract to reconstruct the’ wharf was given to JJM, whose bid'of $7 million was 30 per cent lower than the next lowest bid. “The experienced contractors are still shaking their heads over how a newcomer to the field of marine construction could submit a price at a fraction of the value of theirs and still be taken seriously,” he said. The principal actor in JJM is John Miller, formerly president of a family-run unionized construction firm called Miller Contracting but now head of his own com- pany. Notorious during his tenure as presi- dent of the B.C. Road Builders Association for his cut-rate project agreements which featured nine and 10-hour straight. time days, he has apparently carried over his anti-union approach into marine construc- tion. Miller is currently drawing his workers from Rocco Salituro’s so-called union, the 12 e Pacific Tribune, June 5, 1989 General Workers Union Local 1, and the “right to work” employment referral service - operated by the Independent Contractors ~ and Business Association. Salituro, who has been condemned by the Building Trades for his practice of sign- ing sweetheart pacts with employers under- cutting standard trade wages and conditions, originally signed an agreement in November, 1988 with Miller under the company name Millang Enterprises Ltd. The wage rates range from $10 to $22 an hour — based on “productivity and exper- ience’? — and the contract provides for only time’and a quarter for all overtime up to 60 hours a week. Flynn charged that the two provisions are in violation of federal standards cover- ing overtime and fair wages. “As a min- imum, time and a half is required after 40 hours. And the fair wage is defined as the ‘prevailing rate in the industry’ — not the rate established at the whim of the boss.” The GWU agreement also leaves workers" worse off than if they had no union at all. Current B.C. labour standards covering the minimum hours of work per day and over- time are superior to those in the contract, but under the government’s labour legisla- tion, labour standards can be superseded by an agreement between an employer and a union. In addition, Flynn said, the Port Corpo- ration and the federal ministry ignored cer- tain tender requirements when they awarded pore ieipsalgeamevcren tmuinayvelootarigat | the contract. “JJM has no experience on a job of this size,” he said. ‘‘Serious questions exist about his ability to engage qualified subcon- tractors. These issues were raised with both the Port Corporation and the ministry before the award was made but they appear to have been totally ignored.” Flynn noted that the project is currently “the ultimate mixed-bag site,” with building trades working alongside non-union work- ers and members of Salituro’s General Workers. As a result, he said, “‘members of both the Pile Drivers and the Operating Engineers have been displaced by workers whose wages and conditions are less than industry standards.” Flynn said that Building Trades union members On the project may soon be faced with a decision to continue working or not if JJM is declared unfair. “As we've discussed with the Port Cor- poration and Ministry of Transport offi- cials, there is an affiliation clause in the Building Trades agreement, used to protect members’ jobs, that may be invoked on this site,” he said. “If that happens, Miller’s ability to gua- rantee labour peace on the project, as required by the tender documents, will be ~ anybody’s guess.” : Peter Norris is an organizer with Local 452 of the Carpenters. Colleen Fuller is the editor of On The Level. Name Address eee eee eee eee sree sree eeee TRIBUN Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1Z5. 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