THE WESTERN CANADIAN verve WORKER at Vol. XXXIX, No. 4 VANCOUVER, B.C. 5c PER COPY = APRIL, 1971 JOB EVALUATION COMMITTEE which was set up by the industry and the IWA to examine a sawmill job evaluation plan for the B.C. coast forest industry is shown hard at work. Committee is to saat by July, 1971. IWA committee are, from left, E. deson, Forest Industrial Relations; George Kowbel, 1-217; Maurice Walls, Local 1-357; Wyman Trineer, first vice-president, Forest Products; J. C. Tho Fingarson, IWA consultant. Dependents of two members of Local 1-367 IWA Haney, killed in an auto accident in 1969, have received the In- dustry’s $5,000 Accidental Death Benefit insurance plus accumulated interest, thanks to the fight put up by IWA Regional Secretary-Treasurer Fred Fieber and 2nd Vice- President Jack Munro. The carrier of the Forest < sly gael |8| = 3 /*/8/8] 2 Ele | > Dr., THE LUMBER WORKER 2359 C rd “73 RETURN REQUESTED Industry Health and Welfare Plan, Crown Life Insurance Company, had_ refused payment of the claims on the ground that the deceased members were not covered under the terms of the Plan because they had been in- volved in a work stoppage at their plant. The men were employees of B.C. Forest Products’ Ham- mond Division. Prior to their accident the two men had walked off the job with the rest of the crew in protest over the “time studies’? being con- ducted in the operation by Proudfoot Management Consultants. While the plant was down the two men decided to go fishing. They picked up another em- ployee who worked on the afternoon shift and while driving to the fishing grounds all three were killed. Dear Tony, I was really shocked to hear about your Company firing Bruce Elphinstone. That sure is one hell of a way to treat a guy with a nine-year un- blemished work record, don’t you agree? Imagine those finky bosses of yours (I hope you don’t mind me calling them finks like you used to before going over to management) attempting to deny Bruce the right of grievance by claiming he was a probationary employee. That's got to be the biggest joke of the century. How long j ere - Members of this joint industry- P. Wallis, MacMillan Bloedel; Jacob Holst, Canadian Local IWA; Lorne F.1.R Newsletter Crown Life paid the $5,000 death benefit claim to the dependents of the afternoon employee but adamantly refused payment of the other two claims. Fieber and Munro, who are the Union Trustees of the Plan, immediately took up the case. They met with officials of Crown Life repeatedly but failed to move them from their position. Forest Industrial Relations Head John Billings, one of the two Management Trustees, also argued for payment of the claims. Like the Union Trustees, he took the position that the deceased men qualified for coverage. Lawyer Hank MHutcheon also supported this position in an interpretation of the Plan and the Coast Master See “TRUSTEES” Page 2 that Bruce was _ Plant Secretary at Crown Zeller- bach’s Beaty Laminated Division? I know he was Safety Director of Local 1-217 for four years and his dedication to the job certainly improved the plant’s safety record. It must make your blood boil, Tony, as chief personnel of- ficer of C.Z., to see how your bosses discard good workers like Bruce. I was saying this to some of the fellows in the IWA the other day and you know, Tony, some of them were unkind enough to suggest that you instigated Bruce’s dismissal. MOORE BLASTS PPWC OFFICERS’ ANTI-UNION ACTS IWA Regional President Jack Moore has accused officers of the Pulp and Paper Workers of Canada of cheating and lying to their members to consolidate their position in office. Moore charged that the PPWC officers deliberately lied to their members in claiming that they had a majority when applying for certification of the em- ployees at MacMillan Bloedel’s Chemainus Sawmill Division held by Local 1-80, IWA. He stated that his charge was substantiated by the action of the Labour relations Board in April which flatly rejected the PPWC’s application because the union had failed to sign up a majority of the Chemainus employees. Moore said the purpose of the PPWC officers in submitting the application and lying to their members was in hope of creating strife in the forest industry unions which would enable them to consolidate their position in office. Their action, Moore stated, has cheated PPWC members out of thousands of dollars of union funds which could have been better used to service the organization and to help organize workers in the forest industry. HANK HUTCHEON APPOINTED COAST INDUSTRY ARBITRATOR Lawyer Hank Hutcheon, who has fought many arbitration cases for the IWA, has been appointed by the coast forest industry and the IWA to act as the single permanent §ar- bitrator. The appointment is for-a term of three years and his job will be to settle grievances in the coast forest industry. Mr. Hutcheon has promised to eliminate the lengthy waiting period which so often developed under the old © system where three-man boards were appointed from: time to time to settle disputes. I find this hard to believe. It seems like yesterday when you were President of Local 1-80 and had some of the choicest names for the employers. Remember what you thought of old J. V. Clyne when }. 2 six months in jail for contempt of court. And best of all do you remember how you used to outfox everybody to the point that they called you the one-armed bandit? Of course you have been with management now for a number of years and your views on unions may have changed. But to believe you capable of callously firing a HANK HUTCHEON man because he’s a staunch trade unionist, seems un- thinkable. Still, human behaviour as it is all men change given the proper motivation. The fellows in the Union suggest that your motivation is a personal vendetta against the Beaty Laminated crew now working in Fraser Mills. I wish you would drop me a line, Tony, telling me that it’s your stinking employers that are jacking the crew around and your hands are clean. Yours in on: » Pat Kerr.