SEPTEMBER, 1973 4 ba » MEET JACK MUNRO ... NEW REGIONAL PRESIDENT The following biography of : incoming Regional President _ Jack Munro was written by sAshley Ford, labour reporter =2on The Province, and is being reproduced in the Lumber Worker through the kind permission of The Province _ publishers. __ Jack Munro, the 42-year-old _ incoming president of Western » Canada’s largest union, the _ International Woodworkers of America (IWA), doesn’t really know when he made his commitment to the trade union movement. But it all probably began on a relief farm near Calgary — _ euphemistically referred to as _ McKinnon’s farm he observes _ bitterly — where with his j mother and sister he eked out a q | subsistence living for a | number of years. He is. still bitter about those years. ' Although Munro’s | rise ‘through the ranks of the 47,000 *member IWA has in union terms been meteoric, he ‘is little known outside the im- » mediate ranks of his union and _.the employers he deals with. _ Yet no one can now deny he is one of the powerful labor figures in Canada. Born in Lethbridge, Alta., on March 28, 1931, Munro was educated in Calgary. “I got to Grade XI. Flunked English and social and I decided then I wasn’t going to get a secondary school education.” His early years were miserable. His father con- *tracted tuberculosis and en- tered the sanitarium in Calgary. _ When he died the family was . forced onto the relief farm. “TJ remember going with my mother to the authorities. She ~ has to swear on the Bible that no one had given us any clothes - or food so that she could get her - allotment of $20 a month from the government.”’ There were few funny moments for Munro in those _ days and he makes no bones about his detestation for the relief farm. It was at the Canadian Pacific railway sheds in Calgary as an apprentice machinist that Munro brushed _ shoulders with a trade union and became a member of the International Association of _ Machinists. Completing his apprenticeship in 1954 he _ moved to Lethbridge where he spent many contented years tinkering with the huge steam engines in the roundhouse. After holding minor union _ posts, Munro shifted to Nelson. The coming of the diesel ~ spelled doom for the young machinist’s railway career and he was eventually laid off. Munro never went back to _ the railway, but found himself b : a job as welder in Kootenay — Forest Products sawmill. Although he didn’t know it at the time, his career as a trade unionist had begun. ‘While with the railway, I never thought I would be a paid official of a trade union and in the railroad I was disillusioned with what I saw. I was very disgruntled and frustrated and * saw bad things happening to us. He left the ‘“‘bad feelings’ behind and the IWA revitalized his thinking and personal approach to trade unionism. Munro became active and by the fall of 1960. was elected plant chairman and attended his. first international con- vention in Miami. The organizing ability and personal appeal of the tall, rangy Munro was starting to take hold and he became a staff official the next year. Over the next few years he climbed up the -rungs of the Nelson local to become president. During this period he was elected regional third vice-president on the slate of the man he is now replacing, Jack Moore. The impressive showing he made in the seven and one-half month strike of Southern In- terior Woodworkers was the clincher in his step up to the regional office. Munro was on the negotiatiing committee and when the companies came back near the latter days of the dispute it was Munro’s toughness that helped win the day. In the face of rank and file wavering, Munro with his personal appeal and force got the men to reject the offer. In fact we got a higher rejection vote than we did for the original. vote to go on strike,’”’ he recalls. The workers eventually won a better settlement and Munro was destined for higher things. A tough, yet affable man, Munro has few illusions about the job ahead of him. The IWA is notorious for its internal bickering and fac- tional fighting. It erupted in to the open in 1968 when Van- couver local president Syd Thompson tried to unseat Moore. He failed but has been a constant thorn in the side of the regional office. : Munro indicates he is -dedicated to ending this fac- tionalism. It is his number one job and he has already started laying down the law in his way. He knows the risks involved, but feels forging a new unity in his union is well within his capabilities. Those that come calling at his hotel door, friends and enemies alike, know a new regime is in power. They also know that Jack Munro is his own man and if any tough work is needed he will not shrink from doing it. When accepting the presidency on the opening day of the IWA convention this week he said matter-of-factly; ‘‘Jack Moore did thinks Jack Moore’s way. Jack Munro will do things Jack Munro’s way.”’ The implication of this deliverance was lost on nobody. Munro can be jovial one moment and in a rage the next. His smile accents the craggy features of his face. But the smile can vanish in an instant. He is a woodworkers’ man. That is not. always an easy thing to be. The IWA demands everything at once from a leader and forces him to walk the razor’s edge while in power. There’s usually nothing personal involved. It is just the way this union operates. Munro accepts this challenge readily. He talks the rank and file’s language — tough and spicy. Almost brutally at times, he hammers home his philosophy and policy. “TI love this union,’’ he says. “T wouldn’t be a paid official of a union that I didn’t honestly believe in.”’ Once again he is on the theme of a united group. The smile leaves his face when he warns “I am not a peace-at- any-price man. “T believe one of the most serious problems we have is factions. “Tf I accomplish nothing else, I will weld _ this organization together,’’ He predicts. “T want to listen to all sides of an argument and then take the position I believe in. I honestly believe — and the guys tell me I’m nuts — that if you run the union well, the politics will take care of themselves.”’ For a union that spawns politicians from its ranks at * about the same rate as trees are felled, it is a brave assessment. Munro enjoys tilting at windmills and holier than thou institutions and knocks his own union when he feels it has erred. He told delegates in no un- certain terms this week that the threat of breakaway unionism against the IWA “started within our own union.”’ The nationalism threat is another major hurdle he must steer his union through. But he refuses to shrink and pass it off as a passing phase like many of his contemporaries in other international unions. He can’t. His union lost three sawmills on Vancouver Island to the raiding Pulp and Paper Workers of Canada. Significant and perhaps a gauge of how effective he is when fighting gets really tough is his in- tervention at Somass Sawmill in Port Alberni. The large mill of over 1,000 men was under seige from the PPWC. Munro and Alberni local president Earl Foxcroft went to work and when the smoke cleared after the cer- tification vote the PPWC’s challenge was left in ruins. Wherever the union has been under attack Munro has been there — except at those three sawmills. And he’s as mad as hell about them and quietly mutters that ‘“‘we sat back there.” He is mindful however that international unions have, in some cases, been the authors of their own misfortunes. The IWA is as autonomous as any Canadian union, but the very fact that it is an in- ternational union, has brought it under the guns of the nationalists. Munro rejects the notion that he is not a good Canadian because he belongs to an in- ternational union. ‘‘But I think there are international unions making serious mistakes. In other words there are bad international unions. “Any international union that can’t comply with the Canadian Labour Congress guidelines on autonomy should revise their constitutions,’ he says. Munro views himself as a traditionalist in the trade union movement. He has _ no hesitation in saying that some unions have forgotten the time honored phrase ‘‘unity is strength.” He hammered the message home to delegates this week and pleaded for this unity. Readily admitting his traditionalist feelings, Munro insists the movement must not neglect the original important principles laid down by trade union pioneers. He is convinced there is a place in the movement for the young worker and says the onus is on the unions to involve these people. “They have a completely- different impression of work than I have. We had to work hard from a very young age, but we have to realize that times have changed and younger people have to be educated on how to work.” “J think trade unions and employers have to be more understanding and make such things as the job content and worker involvement much more meaningful.” Munro also took a tilt at politics and has been a card- carrying member of the New Democratic Party since 1963. He contested the provincial election against Socred Wesley Black in 1966. He lost, but ~ improved his party’s share of the vote. Although a faithful party member, Munro was in full cry after the government and in particular Lands and Resources Minister Bob Williams this week. During a debate on in- dependent contractors in the forest industry — the union wants to see them all sign a memorandum of agreement with local unions where they~ are working — Munro told his _ delegates they ‘‘should work harder to defeat Williams than they did the Socreds” if he didn’t do something about the problem. It’s his strong belief in what he is doing that has kept him out of management’s hands. Just recently he turned down a $30,000 post in private industry. Money doesn’t mean that much to him, but he says he’s underpaid. It’s a situation other IWA officers have had to face and the $15,800-per-year salary he will earn as president of a $6 million annual business isn’t exactly a princely sum. Although he wants an in- crease, Munro is not keen on huge union salaries either and thinks some union officials are overpaid. He doesn’t get much time to himself, but admits he can be sentimental. Once again he pauses. He looks at the battered watch on his wrist. ‘‘My uncle gave me that when I started my ap- prenticeship. Had it for 24 years. I’ve treated it badly sometimes,” he says quietly to no one in particular. He becomes sentimental again moments later when he recalls he was able to buy his mother a washing machine with his first pay packet. Munro is proud of that. Just as he is proud of the fact he and his sister have just sent their mother to Australia to see her sister she hasn’t seen ot ae