THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER pole ESTERN CANADIAN = THE WES hea WORKER &«: Published once monthly as the official publication of the INTERNATIONAL WOODWORKERS OF AMERICA Western Canadian Regional Council N Affiliated with AFL-C1IO-CLC 2859 Commercial Orive, Vancouver, B.C. Phone 874-5261 Pat Kerr Business Manager Fred Fieber Forwt Advertising Representatives Elizabeth Spencer Associates varded to every member of the IWA in Western Canada in accordance with convention dec Subscription rate for non-members $2.00 per year HE officers of the Pulp and Paper Workers of Canada are playing a dangerous game in attempting to per- petuate themselves in office at the expense of inciting inter-union war in the forest industry. The only ones who can possibly benefit from such despicable manoeuvering are the employers who would welcome such an event, especially during industry negotiations. Those hardest hit if a battle did develop in the industry would be the PPWC members, a fact which obviously doesn't bother the PPWC officers. Of course this is not strange as they have never been noted for their trade union ethics. Their cannibalistic raiding and back- stabbing of other unions makes it almost inevitable that the PPWC officers would turn on their own members, to protect their official positions. The tragedy of the whole matter is that there is no need for any union to raid another in the forest industry with the thousands upon thousands of mill- workers and loggers still unorganized. All the flag waving and criticism of international unions by the PPWC of- ficers cannot hide this fact. Nor can these officers dispute the logic that if they worked with, instead of against, the other forest industry unions, everyone but the employers would benefit. The PPWC officers refusal to accept such a proposal strongly suggests that they are incapable of “cutting the mustard” in competition with the other unions to win new members by organizing the unorganized wood- workers. Perhaps too, the PPWC officers know how much work is involved in organizing on virgin soil, and prefer the easier but completely unscrupulous approach they now employ. And as long as they can get away with cheating and lying to their members, they can continue. to live in the relative luxury offered by the shaky security of their office. Our managerial caste and their echo chambers throughout the land continually peddle the line that organized labor is too strong for the country’s good and that we need tougher anti-strike laws. Here are some quotes in reply: “,..Can anyone honestly argue that, when the UAW sits down with General Motors or the Woodworkers sit down with MacMillan Bloedel, there is a serious imbalance of power in favor of the union?” “In Canada, two thirds of the labor force are unorganized. Their rates of pay and conditions of employment are de- termined unilaterally by employers, subject, of course, to minimum stan- dards. For the rest, the organized one third, responsibility for determination is shared by employers and trade unions.- And we must remember that, behind the whole process, there are the old- fashioned forces of the labor market.” “One of these views says that labor- management conflict can be made to disappear by the wave of a legal wand. ... “can find no evidence in the experience of foreign countries . .. Or in the experience of our various Canadian jurisdictions... that restrictive legislation will remove the’ potential for industrial conflict. There may be times when the public interest demands restriction of the established right to strike. | have never shrunk from that fact and will not do so in future. But nothing that has come to my eyes or ears would give reason to believe that a systematic denial of that right, or a capacity in government for arbitrary denial, would be either just or effective. | do not believe in magic.’” All of these statements were made to the Industrial Relations Management Association's British Columbia section at a meeting at Harrison Hot Springs by the Hon. Bryce Mackasey, Federal Minister of Labour, on February 18, 1971. Mr. Mackasey is part of a cabinet which deliberately creates unem- ployment. Mr. Mackasey serves in a government where the Chairman of the Prices and Incomes Commission seems to speak for the government when he blames union members for inflation and when he whitewashes unjustified price - boosts. Mr. Mackasey is a member of a party which includes Saskatchewan's. _ Ross Thatcher, who is convinced that the road to re-election means an almost complete obliteration of the right to strike. Mr. Mackasey must be a very lonely man. —Steel Labor \ 4 a \ wy (tn, Se Natl WHALE AT Ya know. . .some guys spend money ta get the’ same tingley feelin’ on a roller coaster! FORD TO FIGHT ARBITRATOR'S ORDER Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. says it will fight an ar- bitrator’s order to pay- auto- workers in Toronto nearly $500,000 the company saved on lower medicare premiums. Arbitrator J. F. W. Weatherill ordered’ the payments in April, 1970, but the company went to court. It lost this year but will appeal the Supreme Court of Ontario’s dismissal of the suit. The company saved more than $27,000 a month when the provincial government intro- duced a doctors’ fees plan in 1969. The company had paid generally higher premiums provided by a private in- surance plan under the car maker’s contract with the United Auto Workers. Chrysler Corp. of Canada is on the sidelines in the battle, waiting the outcome of the Ford legal fight. General Motors, however, capitulated, in effect supporting the union. During last year’s negotiations with the UAW on a new con- tract GM agreed to trade off $800,000 the union said was due in medicare savings for the $1 million the union had borrowed from the company to bolster the depleted supplementary unemployment benefits fund. ’ The arbitrator relied on the medicare law itself to support the union. The Ontario Health ‘Services Insurance Act says that where the government’s premiums are less than under old private plans provided in union contracts, the employer “shall . . . pay the amount of the excess to or for the benefit of the employees’’ until the - contract expires. An earlier appeal to the courts sent the matter back to the arbitrator on a technicality, but he sustained his own decision again. FOREST INSECTS INFLICT HEAVY LOSSES Forest insects inflicted heavy losses to British Columbia’s 1970 crop of spruce seeds, according to scientists of the Victoria Federal Forest Research Laboratory. Analyses of cones collected from seven locations during last season’s bumper cone crop showed that the spiral cone borer and the spruce seed moth infested more than 61 per cent of Engelmann spruce cones and destroyed 30 per cent of the seed. Twenty-four per cent of white spruce cones sampled were infested, with a loss of 9 per cent of seed. Sitka spruce suffered a 6 per cent loss of seed. “This was the most serious overall spruce seed loss to insects since 1968,” said A. F. Hedlin, a Canadian Forestry Service specialist in cone and seed insects. Most losses, Mr. Hedlin added, occurred in the Nelson and Prince George Forest Districts, with the Nelson District being the severest hit. Out of 10 other conifer species sampled 7 species suffered serious seed losses to insects. Bead s | | | a