LAM MM Tt

LABOR

Taking a step backward from union
policy, the regional officers of the Interna-
tional Woodworkers called Monday for
the establishment of a union-initiated
Forest Endowment Fund, launched with
a $5 million loan from the union’s pension
plan, to finance reforestation in the pro-
vince.
IWA regional president Jack Munro
made the Pitch i in his opening address to
the union’s 48th annual convention Sept.
30, saying that “a hundred year’s of evi-
dence” had demonstrated that the govern-
ment and the industry would not do
anything about replenishing the forests.
“So we are suggesting that this genera-
tion of [WA people take steps to ensure
our forests and timber supply and jobs and
pensions and futures,” he told the conven-
tion.
“We are proposing that we in the [WA,
we here, this week, establish the Forest
Endowment Fund. We are proposing that
we begin it with a loan from our pension
fund of $5 million. We are proposing that
when we get it off the ground, find the
most competent, dedicated non-partisan
trustees, draft the right terms of reference,
the federal and provincial governments
and the industry will be invited to parti-
cipate at very substantial levels. And we
believe that they will participate,” he said.
“At that time, maybe we can talk about
a cents-per-hour contribution,” he added.
Significantly, past conventions of the
IWA have explicity rejected resolutions
which called for union participation in a
fund to finance reforestation. At the time,
delegates argued that it was not the
responsibility of industry workers to
replant the forests but rather the govern-
ment and the companies which have taken
profits out, often investing them outside
the country and have failed to carry out
the necessary reforestation.
Four resolutions submitted to the con-
vention this year by local unions echo that
- position, calling on the federal and pro-
vincial governments to establish reforesta-
tion funds and demanding that holders of
Tree Farm Licences “maintain an ade-
quate 1 reforestation and silviculture pro-
gram. ” None of the four mentions union
participation in a fund.
_ Both Munro’s address and the officers’
report, read to the opening session of the
convention, dismissed the possibility of
compelling the industry to carry out its

responsibility for reforestation.

“it is tempting to urge that the industry
bear the full cost of reforestation — but
the simple fact is that the current forest
industry profits are only a tiny fraction of
what is needed,” the report stated. “‘And if
we seek to pass a law compelling present
stockholders to recompense, by losses, for
the unwarranted profits of earlier stock-
holders, we will simply be passing a law
which abolishes investment in our indus-
try.”

Munro also noted that other countries
had already recognized that need to
remove forest re-planting “from the parli-
amentary budgeting process.”

But other countries have also enacted
legislation to ensure that private sector
forest companies replensish the forests
which provide their profits. In Finland, for
example, stringent rules and penalties are
in force and companies must place a dep-
osit, equal to 15 per cent of the value of the

Firefighting restraint slammed

The IWA charged Monday that the
provincial government’s handling of last
summer’s forest fires was “‘a bloody disas-
ter” which resulted in $10 billion worth of
timber, equal to 1,500 person-years of
employment, being lost.

Worse, the government knew about the
danger before the fire season started but
did nothing to overcome the problems
that had been created by its own restraint
program, IWA president Jack Munro
charged in an address to the union’s
regional convention in Vancouver.

“No government has ever been given so
clear and timely a warning by its profes-
sional staff,’ Munro said, noting that a
report given the Socreds in the spring of
1985 warned that fire prevention and early
attack systems had been severely cut back
by the government. “But never has the
carefully considered advice of a profes-
sional staff been so completely and arro-
gantly ignored.”

Because of provincial cutbacks, fire
suppression crews were down to as little as
one-quarter of their normal size, the forest
service was cut 35 per cent, many lookout
towers closed down and much of the
equipment sold as part of the govern-

IWA role in forest fund proposed

timber they cut, into a government-
administered fund
for reforestatation,
some of which is
returned once suc-
cessful replanting
has been ensured.
In this province,
professional _ for-
esters have repeat-
edly argued that}
companies are not}
carrying out their Kaci
responsibilities . JACK MUNRO
under the Tree Farm Licence system an
should be compelled to do so or forfeit
their TFL rights. But to get governments
and the forest industry to put up the
money to restock the forests adequately
would require a major campaign, led by
the IWA — something which several
convention resolutions have, in fact, called
for.

ment’s privatization program, he said.

In addition, the government rejected
professional loggers in hiring fire fighting
crews, opting instead to hire inexperienced
people at lower wages.

The charges of government misman-
agement coincided with the release of an
independent report, prepared by UBC
professor Evelyn Pinkerton, which em-
phasized that fire losses were far greater
than they should have been because of
cutbacks in the ministry.

“The government’s treatment of the
forest fire hazard is representative of the
overall state of forest management in this
province — that is, a bloody disaster,”
Munro charged, citing the critical lack of
reforestation and the continuing high rate
of log exports.

“While we’re doing virtually nothing to
ensure a continuous crop of trees, the
government is allowing record log exports
— 3.2 million cubic metres last year,
about 15 per cent of the Coast harvest this
year,” he said.

“We have to put a stop to this now.”

The IWA president also blamed the
Socred government and the Workers’
Compensation Board for the number of

Ironically, Munro presented the plan to
establish the Forest Endowment Plan as a
trail-blazing campaign in itself, likening it
to the 1935 establishment of the Congress
of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and
suggesting that 50 years from now, people
would look back on “‘a tough courageous
united TWA.”

The scheme projected by Munro and
the officers called for the fund to reach
$600 million, with contributions from the
industry, government, and others. Munro
added that local unions will later be asked

ito spearhead the drive for further contri-
butions, presumably from the union
membership.

He also noted that Prince George law-
yer Allan Hope, a former law partner of
Education Minister Jack Heinrich, had
agreed in principle to be legal secretary of
the fund and Dave-Korbin, managing
partner of the chartered-accountants’ firm
of Samson Belair had agreed to be treasurer.

deaths in the forest industry last year.
Thirty-three people were killed, 21 of them
fallers,

He blamed contracting-out of logging
and ‘“highballing” among contracting
crews for the number of deaths, up sub-
stantially from 1983.

“We won’t accept that nothing can be |)
done,” he said. ““We have to say to the |
minister of labor: if you’re not prepared to
get the WCB off its ass to do its job, then
someone should do your job.”

The logging fatalities were also a focus .
of the safety and health report, slated to go
to the convention Tuesday, which noted
that a similar number of deaths among
police officers would receive far more
attention.

The report also put the blame for the
high fatality rate on contract logging
which has increased considerably in the }
past couple of years as companies seek to-
cut costs and circumvent union condi-
tions.

Increased pressure for production, shift |
scheduling which forces men to work |
anywhere up to 21 days straight, and a |
lack of training provided by contractors —
all contribute to the higher death rate, it —
said. ‘ 4

Continued from page 1
Another part of the study compares the
_ ratio of food vouchers given out by the
ministry to the number of bags of groceries
distributed by the Vancouver Food Bank
since 1982. amie

- case of the Van-
couver Food Bank
(from 226 bags in
December, 1982 to
11,251 in April,
-1985,) the MHR dis-

prov-

_ ince has actually decreased by 18 per cent
(from 6,104 to 5,005 vouchers) in the same
time period,” the study reports.

__ The figures bear out the charge made by
: cand welfare advocacy groups
— and denied by Human Resources Minis-
_ ter Grace McCarthy — that the provincial
_ government is using food banks to cut min-
_ istry costs (see People and Issues, page 4).
__ .But there is considerable concern about
_ the future of the Vancouver Food Bank, the

16 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 2, 1985

study warns, because of the ever-increasing
demand and because the federal Canada

Works grant that pays wages to a few Food

Bank employees is scheduled to run out in

. April, 1986 and will not be renewed.

“The provincial government has essen-
tially created a on community
resources such as the food bank by trading
its voucher distribution for bank bag
distribution — dependency on a system
that could collapse virtually overnight once
the federal funding runs out,” it says.

study also comments on the effects
of the government’s privatization of servi-
ces, citing particularly the cases of
contracting-out of institutional laundry ser-
vices which has resulted in a deterioration of
services to the point where health has been
threatened.

A further study on privatization and
contracting-out of services is to be released
by the union shortly.

Appended to “A Promise Broken” is the
questionnaire completed by some 700
members of four components of the
BCGEU. The survey was done in we and
July of this year.

The findings revealed that 84 per cent

believe the quality of social services in B.C.

has deteriorated while 80 per cent said that
their job related stress has increased primar-

-BCGEU documents service cuts

ily asa result of increased caseloads. Some
77 per cent reported that their case loads
had increased since 1983.

The same percentage — 77 per cent —
said they believed that the quality of service
could be improved by expanding support
services while 76 per cent said they believed
that providing social services: is a primary
government responsibility.

“The report we have released today
makes‘a compelling argument against the
misguided priorities of this government,”
BCGEU president John Shields said in
announcing the study’s findings.

“These so-called restraint measures could
not have come at a worse time,” he said.

“The province is already in the throes of a -

deep economic recession, a recession which
has seen the number of B.C. families under
the poverty line in family income increase
from 30,000 to 120,000 in 1984.

“Government employees directly involved
in the delivery of social services feel a deep
sense of responsibility towards their clients
and are appalled at the deterioration in ser-

ices,” he said.

Although the report has no direct
recommendations, it does state that hiring
more public employees in the ministries
affected is essential “if the government is to
carry out its mandate” of providing social

BCGEU STUDY. . outlining the effects 0
two years of Socred cutbacks.

services to those in need.’
The study also emphasizes: “It is OW
commitment, spurred by the findings of
study, to push for a stop to, and a rollbé
of the government’s ‘downsizing’ efforts
the public service.” :
Predictably, Human Resources Minis
Grace McCarthy dismissed the report
“biased” and a “bargaining ploy” inten¢
to assist the union in its current cont
= (the master agreement expires 9
| *
She admitted, however, that she had!
read the report.