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Labour

Logging p

Continued from page 1
$67,000 against Fletcher-Challenge — but
it only moved in to investigate when the
union drew the forest service’s attention to
the problem, Routley said.

“We contacted the forest service and told
them we were going to be videotaping the
woodwaste. That’s when they came in,” he
said. The company subsequently sent
loggers into the area to harvest the timber
which had been left on the ground.

Routley said the union estimated that
some 1,600 truckloads of logs were left on
the ground to rot in the area — one truck-
load for every hectare of land harvested.

Lyn Kistner, a logger at the Renfrew
Logging Division and a member of the
Task Force, said that members were cur-
rently videotaping areas logged by two of
Fletcher-Challenge’s logging divisions,
Caycuse and Renfrew, and would be draw-
ing public attention to the crisis at a demon-
stration outside Fletcher-Challenge’s offices
in Vancouver set for Nov. 25.

Among those taking part in the demon-
stration will be many of the 310 workers
from Fletcher-Challenge’s Youbou mill
which was shut down this month, sup-
posedly because of 'a shortage of wood. And
there are other operations affected by log
shortages, including the Fletcher-Challenge
operation in Lumby, which was also shut
down, putting some 90 workers on the
street.

The log export problem is also highligh-
ted by Fletcher-Challenge’s practices, Rou-
tley said.

“They could buy logs from MacMillan-
Bloedel — but they say it’s not as profitable
to do that. And instead MacMillan-Bloedel
is exporting 60 per cent of its dryland log
sort in that area,” he said.

Kistner emphasized that B.C. Forest
Products, which Fletcher-Challenge merged
with Crown Forest following its takeover of
the two companies, exported 500,000 cubic
metres of whole logs last year.

“The log shortages are: a created
problem — created by the companies,”
Routley said. “And if we’re going to sur-
vive, we’ve got to stop wasteful practices
and see to it that the companies process
every log they cut.”

One of the objectives of the task force is a
change in the Forest Act to force the com-
panies to pay for standing timber. As it
stands now, said Routley, the companies
“don’t have to pay until the timber arrives
at the dryland sort. So there’s no incentive
to log properly.”

And the increasing privatization of the
forest service has resulted in more wasteful
logging practices being overlooked, he said,
charging that the service “is privatized to the
point that the foxes are looking after the
chicken house.” :

Ina statement adopted last month, [WA-
Canada Local 1-363 also spoke out against
wasteful logging practices and overcutting
by the forest companies and called for the
establishment of a royal commission on
forestry, “one with teeth to have changes
implemented to save our forests for jobs in
the future.”

The statement, adopted Oct. 16 and sub-
sequently carried in local newspapers, noted
that the multinational forest giants “are try-
ing to set up the environmental groups as
scapegoats for wooodworkers to rail
against to divert~attention from the real
problems facing us.”

*Key among those problems, it said, is the
“alarming overcutting” whereby the com-
panies harvest 97 million cubic metres per
year while growing only 55 million cubic
metres.

It called for the appointment of a royal
commission and the establishment of a land
use committee “with representatives from
all constituencies concerned with proper
forest land management to make recom-
mendations in the interests of all concerned
groups.”

12 e Pacific Tribune, November 21, 1988

ractices threatenin

Close to 150 members of the Pension-
er’s Association of the International
Longshoremen’s dnd’ Warehousemen’s
Union demonstrated outside the offices of
the B.C. Maritime Employers Association
in Vancouver Wednesday to protest the
employers’ refusal to negotiate a decent
pension increase as directed under federal
back-to-work legislation two years ago.

“These guys are sending a message to
the employers — that it’s time they got
serious about their obligation to the pen-

Pensions

:

sion fund,” said ILWU Canadian Area
secretary Gordie Westrand.
Longshoremen were forced back to
work under federal legislation which
ended the industry strike in 1986 and

_ imposed a collective agreement on the

ILWU. Under the imposed contract, the
BCMEA was instructed to make “sub-
stantial additional contributiéns” to the
ILWU pension fund.

But the BCMEA has refused to bring

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

pensions into line with those paid long-
shoremen in Seattle or grain and coal port
workers in B.C. ILWU pensioners receive
amaximum of $550a month — compared
to the top rate of $1,050 for grain
workers — and have not had an increase
since 1985.

Westrand said the union was pressing
for a basic pension of $750 up to 1988,
coupled with built-in increases after 1988
to enable pensioners to keep pace with
others in the industry.

———

Backing its contention with a detailed
report it has just released, the B.C. Federa-
tion of Labour this week reiterated its stand
that the Industrial Relations Council and
Bill 19 are not working and should be
scrapped.

“The facts are all there in the report —
and they show very clearly . . . that the qual-
ity of decisions coming out of the IRC are
suspect, they show bias and leave us little
alternative but to say ‘we told you so,’ ”
B.C. Fed president Ken Georgetti told a
news conference Thursday.

-The 39-page re-
port, which analyzes
several key IRC deci-
sions as well as the
personnel and func-
i tions of the IRC,
| covers the first year
of operation of the
| council, set up under
Bill 19. It is based on
submissions. from
unions and labour
lawyers as well as
reports from business analysts and public
affairs commentators.

It notes that the relative calm in this
year’s major bargaining round has left the
false perception that there is “labour
peace,”in the province — which the gov-

GEORGETTI

ernment has attributed to the existence of
Bill 19.

But, the report warns, “contrary to what
the public as a whole may think, Bill 19 and
actions of the IRC are creating a simmering
pot of labour unrest.”

Because the IRC has been discredited in
the labour relations field, IRC vice-chairs
have little or no expertise in labour laws, it
notes.

In addition, decisions are rendered with
“a total disregard for past decisions,”
important rulings are delayed for months
and decisions frequently “consistently
favour” such renegade unions as the Cana-

Fed report bares failure of IRC

dian Iron, Steel and Industrial Worke
Union.

The Building Trades, particularly, has
been the victim of both the punitive section
of Bill 19 and the operation of the IRC, th?
report says.

Georgetti told reporters that the boycot!
of the IRC would continue but he warn¢
that the legislation could “not continue for
much longer. ;

“Sooner or later Bill 19 and the IRC wi
result in a major industrial relations uphe*
val,”’ he said.

He reiterated the federation’s appeal !
the premier to “‘sit down with him at a?
time and draft new legislation.”

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