OCTOBER, 1972 into a pension fund with an agreement that we jointly request F.I.R. to allow our Northern Interior members to join in the Coast plan; category rate revisions which amounted to about 5 cents per hour effective the first day of the new agree- ment in place of sawmill evaluation; bereavement leave to include stepchild- THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER ren; joint trusteeship in the Health & Welfare plans that did not have this provision. At the time of writing this report negotiations are con- tinuing with the Cariboo Lumbermen’s Association in Williams Lake. The agreements at Williams Lake expire September 30th. PRAIRIE PROVINCES Rivers Sawmill, Manito- ba — completed April 20. Meadow Lake Sawmill, Sask. — completed May 26. Aspenite Loggers, Hudson Simpson Loggers, Hudson Bay, Sask. — completed Sept. 1. Negotiations were suc- cessful in bringing about substantial wage increases, Bay Sask. — completed and fringe benefits are now July 26. comparable to the Coast. ORGANIZATION Although the Assistant Director of Organization, Bob Schlosser will be pre- senting this convention with a detailed report it should be noted by the delegates that our membership is larger than ever before in our short history. In Western Canada the average mem- bership last year was 43,672. The Organization Depart- ment and the organizers de- Serve credit for their per- formance over the past few years. We do have problems now in this Department as Brother Mike Sekora is re- tiring in nine months; Brother Jim Rouw has been incapacitated for some months; and Brother Dick Larson has taken a position with the Canadian Labour Congress. This leaves only Brother Frank Stich offici- ally on the Org. staff and Brother Art Friske who has been sustained as an organ- izer on the Prairies by the Regional Council. If we are to continue our growth we must find the finances to re- build our Org. staff to at least the level we had one year ago. PLYWOOD EVALUATION The Regional Evaluation Department has encounter- ed serious opposition from F.I.R. with respect to cor- recting grading rule appli- cations which have crept in- ' to the plywood job evalua- tion program primarily as a result of: (a) Justice Nemetz’ re- commendations in 1966, and (b) Professor Wilkinson’s recommendations in 1971. The Department over the past few months has met almost continuously with F.I.R., however F.I.R. is not prepared to concede to the Union’s request. As a result the Depart- ment has not been able to process outstanding evalu- ation requests and your Re- gional Officers have this matter under close scru- tiny. RESEARCH AND EDUCATION The Department’s activi- ties once again focused on the three major sets of ne- gotiations in British Colum- bia. In addition to the norm- al service associated with wages and contract confer- ences and negotiating, the Department was active in preparing for the pension plan that has been negotia- ted. Negotiating publicity act- ivities were considerably expanded this year, with a total expenditure of about $40,000 for the major con- tracts. The Department feels that for what was es- sentially a first effort at sustained and co-ordinated publicity, the program was _ a@ reasonable success, and - recommends that it be ex- panded during negotiations, and that consideration be given to occasional ‘good- will’ advertisements not directly associated with ne- gotiations. The latter could be direct- ed at the widespread view that we are interested only in more money. Fewer seminars were conducted this year be- cause of negotiations, but programs were held in Lo- cals 1-405, 1-357, 1-184 and 1- 324. The program in 1-405 was especially interesting for the Department because it was held in Cranbrook and about 100 Shop Stew- ards attended. The large number made it possible to offer a wider variety of sub- jects, and the Department feels that the Cranbrook format is worth considera- tion by all out of town locals. Local 1-357 has been very active in sponsoring semin- ars both directly and with the assistance of the Labour Council, that have been very successful. During the Coast strike, the Department planned a special ‘‘strike school’’, en- titled ‘‘Unions now and in History’’. The Department believes -that the subject and materials for that school can and should be adapted for regular semin- ars. The CLC is sponsoring a program in penal institu- tions, and the Director of the Department spoke to groups in the Matsqui Insti- tution as a part of that pro- gram. ‘This is a worthwhile activity and we recommend that it be continued and in- creased. POLITICAL EDUCATION Your Regional Council held a Political Education Conference in March which was well attended by Local Unions within this Regional Council. M.L.A.’s Dennis _Cocke, Ernie Hall, and now- Premier Dave Barrett were also in attendance and spoke to the delegates as- sembled. . The Conference, after serious discussion, made several recommendations in Political Education and action which were adopted’ by the Regional Executive Board and communicated to the Local Unions. In our report to the last Convention we reported that, ‘“‘The major political events of the past year have taken place in the prairie: provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.”’ : Itis most gratifying to be able to report this year that the major. political event took place in the province of British Columbia with the advent of the provincial election resulting in .an overwhelming victory .for the New Democratic Party. We believe that the I.W.A. played their part in helping bring about that victory for the N.D.P. We congratulate the Lo- cal Unions for their per- formance in the provincial election campaign. We also take this opportunity to con- . gratulate Premier Barret on his victory. However, it seems timely to emphasize that a federal election cam- paign is presently in full swing .and all assistance possible should be extended the NDP. We believe that Local Unions were much more vi- gorous in the provincial election than they have In 30 years of professional chain saw manufacture, this is one we had to call “Super”: been for a long time, but that we have hardly scratched the surface of our potential. Itis a good rule of thumb that our sincerity can be gauged most accur- ately in dollars and cents — how much money, how many people are we pre- pared to allocate uncondi- tionally to our political ob- jectives? We have spent money and valuable staff time only to the extent we believe that it can be spared somehow from the pursuit of other trade union object- ives. We hope that this con- vention will give positive consideration to policy de- signed to change that. It should be mentioned in this report that with the election of an NDP govern- ment in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, legislation has been enacted that provides easier access to organiza- tion and also provides avenues for a fair hearing for organized labour togeth- er with legislation that is of paramount importance to. all working people. 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