\ THE WESTERN CANADIAN THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER 38,000 copies printed in this issue. Published once monthly as the official publication of the INTERNATIONAL WOODWORKERS OF AMERICA Western Canadian Regional Council No. 1 Affiliated with AFL-C10-CLC 2858 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C. Phone 874-5261 Editor — Pat Kerr _ Business Manager — Fred Fieber Advertising Representatives — Elizabeth Spencer Associates Forwarded to every member of the IWA in Westérn Canada in accordance with convention decisions. e@izs>? Subscription rate for non-members $2.00 per -year. GUEST EDITORIAL THEY THOUGHT OF EVERYTHING HE pension plan improvements for members of Parliament came up very fast. They were excessively complicated and disinfected, so to speak, by being joined to quite proper and fong-overdue pension increases for retired civil servants. They went through very fast. All this made analysis of the changes fairly difficult, but the more one looks at them, and the closer one looks, the more they add up to just about the sweetest pension plan that ever came down the pike. . It isn’t only the sort of obvious things, like the maximum pension of $9,000 after 30 years becoming a maximum pension of $13,500 after 25 years, or a member being able to collect after only six years in the House, instead of after three Parliaments. It’s what a member can use to swell his return. Take, for instance: under the old pension plan all calculations began with the premise that an MP’s expenses (remember? $6,000 a year tax-free) were not part of his salary. But under the new plan they are and that means that when a member starts to salt away for his middle age, the percentage he can put into the pension plan is reckoned on his $12,000 indemnity plus his $6,000 expenses, for a total of $18,000; and so are the matching contribu- tions made by the Government (by us taxpayers, that is), ought to buy a lot more. And just to be sure that it does the bill also makes it pos- sible for a member now in the House (you have to be “around” to be entitled to such benefits) to make retroactive pension payments, with interest, to bring their post-1963 contributions up to the level which will qualify them for the new, increased benefits. It is interesting to note that this retroactive clause would enable an MP elected for the first time in 1963 to retire this year and collect a pension at the new rate by the simple exped- ient of paying seven times the difference be- tween the new contribution rate ($1,260) and the old rate ($720), plus interest at (get this) the rate of 4 per cent. This would cost, and we’ve probably been generous with the interest, around $3,931. The result would be an annual pension, starting in 1970 no matter what the member's age, of $4,410, as opposed to $2,100 under the old scheme. Just exactly the kind of invest- ment all of us have been looking for, but only MPs (and some MLAs) ever find. It obviously helps to be actually participating in democracy. That matter of the member being able to collect the moment he quits, or is retired by the voters: C. A. Curtis emeritus dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Research at Queen’s University, who prepared a study on parliamentary retirement allowances to guide Parliament, recommended that pensions be paid only to those 55 years of age and over. The major change between the Curtis rec- ommendations and what the Government pro- posed and Parliament approved was this ad- justment of age from 55 to whatever a member may be, and perhaps there are some MPs in their thirties and forties who would admit that it is major indeed. - But don’t think that only the major factors involving the well-being of the members en- gaged their attention. They did not overlook fringe benefits. A nice one makes provision for the Govern- ment to deduct from IP’s pensions an amount for application against medicare and the fed- eral supplementary surgical - medical plan, which is akin to Blue Cross. The Government itself (us, that is) will also contribute an amount no higher than the amount it used to contribute before the introduction of medicare — in the case of a retired MP living: in Ontario, with a wife and at least one child, the federal contri- bution would be $5.81 a month. The Government’s — and Parliament’s — is that employers frequently agree to continue health plan payments after their employees retire. That is certainly true, but such employ- ees retire at 60 or 65 and generally right out of the work force. We will be paying this benefit, for life, to ex-members of 35 and 36 who will be gainfully employed during years of subsidy. Yes, it is a very satifactory pension plan for members of Parliament, and it was satisfactory to all but a group of New Democrats led by Stanley Knowles. On top of it is stacked the Canada Pension Plan and, of course, the universal old-age pension. Some 785,000 Canadians have nothing to live upon but the $79.85 old-age pension and a supplement of up to $31.83 a month. Perhaps some of them will still be living, and remember- ing, by the next election. — Globe and Mail AIR POLLUTION FIGHT PAYS OFF “in London, England, British trade unions can prove to their American counterparts that U.S. labor's campaign against air pollution can pay off in terms of economics and even more jobs. In the Greater London area it has cost the local and national govern- ments only 36c per citizen per year to achieve an % reduction in smoke and 50% more winter sunshine. The government's campaign has not only controlled industrial smoke, but has also paid 70% of a householder’s cost of altering his furnace or fire- place to use smokeless fuels. “With 50% more winter sun and therefore greater warmth, workers’ families found their heating costs slashed up to 40%, and doctors’ bills for respiratory ailments also reduced, “Two wholly unexpected benefits: 1) with city air becoming fess and less dirty, workers find their laundry bilis becoming smaller; 2) more jobs have been created in the building-cleaning business because owners no longer claim there is no sense in clean- ing a building that will become dirty ail over again in a few weeks.” — from CavilCade by Les Finnegan Jans OCTOBER, 1970 | said we didn’t work in the rain .. . | didn’t say nothin’ about layin’ in fer no west coast mist! UNITED APPEAL THANKS — The Editor: May I thank you on behalf of our United Appeal for your thoughtful and _ excellent editorial in the September issue of the ‘‘Lumber Worker.” Ten years ago I resigned as a Regional Trustee and left the industry to become executive director of the united Good Neighbours. During that time I have been fortunate in maintaining the loyal support of the trade union movement. This year we have joined with Vancouver in one -United Appeal for the Lower Mainland. This one appeal still “preserves the right of the two organizations to distribute to their own agencies. This distribution is carried out by volunteer committees who recommend to the Board of Directors. The UGN board has equal representation from labour and industry thus giving labour a full voice in all proceedings. It is significant that the boundaries of the two organizations parallel those of Local 1-217 and Local 1-357. We hope that this new alliance will better meet the needs of the community and continue to press for greater government participation to provide needed community services. Yours sincerely, UNITED APPEAL, W. P. Wilson, Executive Director. SS ETE] STRONG LABOR SUPPORT ELECTS STEPHEN LEWIS With strong grass-roots labor support, MPP Stephen Lewis won the Ontario New Democratic Party leadership at the climax of an exciting three-day convention. Mr. Lewis took 64.2 percent of the votes in defeating his caucus colleague, Walter Pitman, 1,188 to 642. A third contestant got 21. No Split The big convention left no apparent splits in the provincial party. The leadership issue boiled down to one of style — Mr. Lewis’s aggressive manner versus the Peterborough MPP’s more conservative approach. Labor delegates for the first time in the party’s history controlled a majority of the votes. Unions sent 830 delegates, riding associations 864. The rest came from the provincial and federal caucuses and the provincial executive and council. Counting unionists in the _ race. constituency ranks, - labor dominated the floor votes. But Mr. Lewis’s union support was middle- and low- rank, not from the ‘‘leaders”’ the reactionary press tired to smear the party with. Only one prominent union leader, the UAW’s Dennis McDermott, actively supported the Lewis Others were un- committed either way. Easy Triumph Mr. Lewis, at not quite 33, became one of the youngest major political figures in the country with his easy triumph. Mr. Lewis chided reporters at a post-convention news conference for trying to “‘raise the old union bogey” about labor domination of the party. The big labor turnout widens the party’s base, he said. “Labor delegates took social positions that were essentially the positions of the party as 4 whole on the major votes,” he said.