CAS THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER Vol. XXXVI, No. 11 at IWA DELEGATES from all Local Unions of Regional VANCOUVER, B.C. Wrry aeunl| 5¢ PER COPY SS ——} "ae Council No. 1, attending the Plywood and Sawmill Evaluation Conferences September 5 and 6, at Wood- workers’ House in Vancouver. Group on platform, left, are: AT REGIONAL CONFERENCE 3 WORKER SEPTEMBER, 1969 BITTER OPPOSITION EXPRESSED TO SAWMILL EVALUATION PROGRAM A recommendation that the Regional Executive Board ask the Local Unions to reconsider their position on Sawmill Evaluation was unanimously approved by the delegates attending the special Delegated Conference on Sawmill Job Evaluation, September 6, in Woodworkers’ House, Vancouver. The majority of the 122 delegates, representing all Lo- cals in Regional Council No. 1, showed bitter opposition to accepting any form of sawmill evaluation. Most strongly op- posed were the coast Local Unions. None of the resolutions sub- mitted to the Conference were dealt with. Following a wide open discussion that clearly indicated no headway could be made, John Hachey, 1st Vice-President of Local 1-357, who along with his Local Union favours sawmill evalu- ation, ended the stalemate by proposing the following mo- tion: “That this subject matter be referred to the Regional Ex- ecutive Board with a recom- mendation to the Local Un- ions that they reconsider their position on Sawmill Evalua- tion.” Regional officers Wyman Trineer, 2nd Vice-President; Jack 4 Munro, 3rd Viec-President; Jack MacKenzie, 1st Vice- President; Fred Fieber, Secretary-Treasurer; and Plywood Evaluators Al Busch and Tony Vanderheide. DELEGATES RECOGNIZE PROBLEM: JCF +. . a ee ow iaRME POE Lol | BREESE weicoMe i, ** PLYWOOD MANUAL BLAMED — BEE oiiecares By FOR PRESENT EVALUATION ILLS | AN DELEGATES trom the East and West Kootenays attending the 10th Annual Delegated Meeting of Local 1-405 IWA, August 23, in Nelson. See story, page 6. CANADA POSTAGE - POSTES 4 cts. PERMIT No. 2075 VANCOUVER, B.C. BULK THE LUMBER WORKER RETURN REQUESTED >; Commercial Dr., Vancouver, B.C. L.R.B. NEARLY TRIGGERS CO-OP STRIKE A Labour Relation Board ruling that no collective agree- ment existed between Local 1-417 IWA and the Federated Co-operatives Limited, Sal- mon Arm, very nearly trig- gered a strike by the 200 em- ee of the Plant August Only the determined effort of Regional 3rd Vice-Presi- dent Jack Munro, aided by Local officers Art Kelly, Pres- ident, and Kevin Kelly, Fin- ancial Secretary, in a day- long meeting with the Com- pany averted the walk-out. The Board made the ruling August 14, following a dispute between the Local Union and the Company over the vaca- tion clause contained in the collective agreement. The Lo- eal argued that this clause, © which was superior to the one in the present Southern In- terior Agreement, still re- mained in force. See “STRIKE”, page 3 Three recommendations aimed at improving the recognized faults of plywood job evaluation won endorsation of the 114 delegates attending the special Plywood Evaluation Conference September 5, in Woodworkers’ House, Vancouver. The first recommendation called for the Regional Exec- utive Board to attempt to im- plemerit ‘‘percentage” grade increments into the plywood evaluation programme. The second recommendation called for the Regional Exec- utive Board to -engage the services of an Industrial En- gineer to assist the Regional Council in drafting changes to the Plywood Manual in order to compensate plywood work- ers for changing production procedures. The third recommendation called for the Regional Exec- utive Board to review the present Plywood Job Evalua- tion Administrative Proce- dures. The last Regional Conven- tion authorized the holding of a special plywood conference to study the problem and make recommendations to the Regional Executive Board be- cause of the amount of criti- cism levelled against the pro- gramme. Prior to approving the re- commendations, the delegates, representing all Local Unions in Region No. 1, spent the en- tire day debating the subject thoroughly. A good number of them ad- vocated scrapping the plan in favour of negotiating wage re- visions for plywood workers. They argued that negotiating wage revisions produced more benefits and made a more militant Union. All the delegates were in accord that the present man- ual was useless and that un- less adequate changes were made to it, the programme should be junked. None of the delegates blam- ed the Union evaluators for what was wrong with the pro- gramme. They recognized that the evaluators were trapped by the faults of the manual. It was apparent, however, that evaluation was a dirty word to a number of the dele- gates, of whom the majority were from those Local Unions having the programme the longest. A number of these dele- gates told the Conference that they had been in favour of evaluation initially but the longer the programme remain- ed, the smaller the increases became: Local 1-217 moved a resolu- tion to have a referendum throughout all plywood plants covered by the Coast Master Agreement on the question of retaining the present plywood - evaluation plan but the mo- tion was defeated in a vote of the delegates. Another resolution submit- ted by Local 1-85 instructing the Coast Negotiating Com- mittee to attempt to negotiate any reference to job evalua- tion in the plywood section out of the Coast Master Agreement, was ruled out of order. LOCAL 1-71 IWA Ist Vice-President Ben Thompson, left, is shown presenting the IWA trophy to Brian Herlihey, winner of the standing block chop event during the Loggers’ Sports at the Pacific National Exhibition. See story, page 7,