A4- The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, July 24, 2002

*- TERRACE.

STANDARD

ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988

PUBLISHER: ROD LINK
ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G 5R2
TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 * FAX: (250) 638-8432
WEB: www.terracestandard.com ‘
EMAIL: nev. sroom@terracestandard.com

Compromise

THERE IS no question a deal must be struck
between Skeena Cellulose’s new owners and its
unionized workers. The trick is getting there.
Sawmill workers here balk at a 20 per cent
pay cut Skeena Cellulose CEO Dan Veniez says
all workers must take to make SCI competitive.
The pay cuts, with reduced vacations, benefits
and other items, are too much, the union says.
Mr. Veniez has countered by offering a

-$5,000 cash signing bonus ~ an amount he says

is an advance on regular profit-sharing. He says
15 per cent of the company’s profits would be
redistributed each year amongst the workers.

This seems generous — Mr. Veniez predicts it
could amount to about $10,000 per worker each
year based on after-tax profits of $50 million.

And Mr. Veniez is likely right that only a sig-
nificant pay cut, coupled with other measures,
will make Skeena Cellulose a lean performer
that can survive future market downturns.

Still, the sacrifices seem stacked on the work-
ers’ side of the ledger.

Some contractors and business people private-
ly question what Mr. Veniez and his investors
are really putting on the table. They have paid
just $8 million to fish the company out of bank-
Tuptcy. That’s literally pennies compared with
the company’s profit potential in a good year.

The sense that NWBC Timber and Pulp is
getting the operations for almost nothing has
twisted the region’s gratitude.

Mr. Veniez says locals should support him for
their own wellbeing first and foremost. He is
the catalyst and the $100 million his firm will.
raise will modernize and save the operations.

If workers accept the 20 per cent pay‘cut, | E

perhaps Mr. Veniez can give ground elsewhere.

Under his profit-sharing plan, Mr. Veniez
and his investors retain 85 per cent of profits.

If he really wants to get his workers thinking
like owners, Mr. Veniez could boost profit-
sharing to perhaps 20 or 30 per cent.

And if he’s looking for more ways to cement
his partnership with the region, here’s another
idea, Offer to direct a further slice of profits to
a fund to maintain and enhance forest service
rec sites and trails now slated for cutbacks.

By NWBC’s math, a mere one per cent of a
$50 million profit would nearly triple the forest
service’s 2001 operational budget of $178,000
for trail and site maintenance in the five forest
districts in which Skeena Cellulose operates.

That would bolster amenities used by tourists
and locals, and be a reinvestment on the land
from which new owners will draw their profits.

Sharing more profits would further demon-
strate to workers and the region that perfor-
mance pays. It would also deflect the criticism
that Mr. Veniez and company are clinging to an
entitlement culture of their own.

PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link
ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach
PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur

NEWS: Jeff Nagel

2001 WINNER NEWS/SPORTS Sarah Zimmerman
ae NEWS/COMMUNITY: Jennifer Lang
COMPETITION FRONT OFFICE: Darlene Keeping & Carol McKay

! CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Terri Gordon
ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS:

Bert Husband & Stacy Gyger
TELEMARKETER: Stacy Gyger
COMPOSING: Susan Credgeur

AD ASSISTANT: Sandra Stefanik

SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL:
$56.25(+$3.94 GST)=60.19 per year; Seniors $49.50 (+$3.47
GST)=52.97; Out of Province $63.22 (+$4.43 GST)=67.65
Outside of Canada (6 months) $152.34 (+$10.66 GST)=163.00

MEMBER OF
B.C. AND YUKON COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION,

CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION ( :
ANO WM CNA, coonsernermuns

B.C. PRESS COUNCIL (www.beprasscounell.org}

Serving the Terrace and Thomhil! area. Published on Wednesday of aach week at 3210 Clinton Street,
Tenace, Briish Columbia, V8@ 5R2,

Sterles, photographs, Illustrations, designs and typastytes In tha Tarrace Standard are the property of the
copyright holders, including Cariboo Press (1969) Ltd., its illustration rapro services and acvartising
apeicies.

Flaproduction in whola or in part, without written permission, is specifically prohibited.

Authorized a8 second-class mall pending the Post Office Dapartment, for payment of postage In cash.

Speclal thanks to all our contributors and correspondents
for thelr time and talents

ENIX, ANDALUCIA ~ They
are called White Villages.
Clinging to steep mountain-
sides, the ancient white-
washed houses of the smail
towns that dot the Sierra de
Gador appear in blinding con-
trast to the blue sky.

Since time immemorial,
these homes have been white-
washed once a year, as pro-
lection against the swarms of
insects that descend on the
area in early summer,

The houses have few win-
dows opening onto the street,
but when I Jooked into an open
docrway, I noticed a beautiful
courtyard overlooking a steep
valley and a swimming pool.
Nol everyone appears to be
poor in these remote villages.

At a testaurant, preparing to
open for business, a man was
busy white-washing the walls,
hot the kind of work most of us
would want to do in searing
35-degree temperatures.
+. We stopped: for lunch at

lages. The menu was, of
course, in Spanish, the selec-
tion huge. .

While in most parts of Eur-
ope you will get by with Engl-
ish, it’s nearly impossible to
find anyone who speaks Engl-
ish in these remote parts of
Andalucia.

So, you hunt for some fami-
liar word on the meny. Tottitla
de patatas sounded like a safe

WHISTLEBLOWERS are rare
gutsy people willing to risk
everything to better society.
Nervous or shy whistleblowers

- phone Crimestoppers anonym-
ously. Yet they, too, contribute
to the solving of crimes, even-
tually.

Two major whistleblowing
successes have become mo-
vies: Erin Brockovitch, who
won a multi-million dollar
class action lawsuit against a
U.S. utility company whose
practices ruined the health of
many living near its plant. The
Insider, about Sam Walker,
the scientist who quit working
for a tobacco manufacturer to
testify against its cancer-caus-
ing products,

Other major successes are
too fresh to have become mo-
vies.

In Alabama, 4 71-year-old
grandfather was convicted for
the 1963 dynamiting of a
Baptist church which killed
four black girls, aged seven to
12, His granddaughter, who
had listened all her life to him
joke about blowing up chur-
ches and killing black people,
turned him in.

But not until she saw his

Enix, ohe of the White Vil-” ’

ag BOREAL BEAR CRISS!
AN ABUNDAN.

“FROM THE CAPITAL-
HUBERT BEYER

bet. What 1 got was a kind of
omelet with egg and potatoes,
It tasted great, but I couldn’t
finish it. The price: $4.50,
Back in the cities of Anda-
lucia, there is a building
boom. Tourists have disco-
vered this part of Spain. The
almost guaranteed sunshine,
the fabulous beaches and re-
atively low prices are attract-
“ing more and more -.yisitors
from the colder clinies of Bur-
ope.

There are five-star hotels,
vying with the best of Hawaii
and North America. But there
are also low-priced condos to
rent. The one I rented over-
looked a beautiful beach at
Roquetas de Mar, near Almer-
ia and cost $60 a night. The
same accommodation in Cali-
fornia or Hawaii would set you

Time to blow the

‘THROUGH BIFOCALS:
CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

picture on TV news as some-
one interrogated by the FBI
regarding a church explosion.

Only then did she connect
his stories to an unsolved
crime form the Martin Luther
King era.

After weighing the conse-
quences, she phoned the FBI.
Testifying in court, her family
and grandfather saw her as a
traitor, but she has no regrets
for speaking up on behalf of
four little girls murdered be-
fore the age of 12, Her grand-
father lived on comfortably for
another 39 years.

RUNNING WITH THE BULLS

White Villages symbol of EU economy |

THE HUNTING SEASON “
oe ANCE OF HAS BEEN CANCELLED.“

a GEERIES HAS KNOCKED
GEARS ouT BEFORE
THEY REACH THER DENS!

back $150 a night.

Nothing today reminds the
visitor of Andalucia’s bloady
past in the first half of the 20th
century.

It was here where in early
1936, poor and starving work-
ers rebelled against the rich
landowners. And it was here
where a certain General Fran-
cisco Franco enlisted volun-
teers for his “Holy Christian
War” against the “Left
Anarchists” in Madrid,

Franco expected the war to
be over in a few weeks, but it
was to last until the spring of
1939,

Foreign powers fought a
proxy war here. Nazi Germany
supported Franco, others took
the side of the Leftists,

Millions fost their lives in
the civil war. Mass graves
were found outside villages.
Hemingway brought the war to
world attention with his book
“For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

Franco claimed victory “for
God and -Church” over the

Anarchists and Republicans, |

and established a dictatorship
that was to last for 40 years.

But as 1 mentioned in an
earlier column, tyrants do not
last. Franco didn’t either, nor
did his repressive regime. An-
dalucia’s lust for life survived
the general and today is in full
swing again,

While the current buitding
boom an Andalucia’s coastal

cities speaks. of prosperity,
there are those who are left be-
hind,

Unemployment is at 20 per
cent. .

But those who have jobs,
have experienced a 20 per cent
increase in their standard of
living in the last 10 years.

Much of this cost-of-living
increase is due to transfer pay-
ments of the European Cam-
munity, Not unlike the system
in Canada, where the have-pro-
vinces support the have-not
ones, the richer member coun-
tries of the EC support the
poorer ones.

Most of the roads, bridges
and tunnels built in recent
years to give Spain a better
transportation infrastructure,
were built with EC money.
Germany has been the greatest
contributor. And as in Canada,
those who have to pay are
complaining.

If you come to Andalucia,
you must see a Flamenco
dance. Granada's revered-poet
Garcia “Lorca described ‘the
Flamenco as “Europe's oldest
and artistically richest
folklore,” ‘

An ancient mating ritual,
the Flamenco is Andalucia’s
national dance, performed with
a fiery passion you will not for-
get.

One more thing: As in most
of Europe, you can smoke in
any restaurant in Spain,

whistle on crime

In Chicago, a drug sales-
man learned of illegal kick-
backs by upper management in
his pharmaceutical company.
He could have kept quiet and
kept his salary, commissions
and fine pension.

He opted instead to do the
honest thing. After photocopy-
ing reams of evidence, he
blew the whistle. Following
five year investigation, his
drug company paid almost
$800 million in penalties. He
received a whistleblower’s re-
ward of $78 million.

Some whistleblowers build
up steam over time, until an
incident prods them to act.
Such was the case of an arson-
ist who boasted of having
burned down Campbell River's
famed Painter's Lodge Christ-
mas Eve 1985, Afier 10 years,
family had had it. Both his
daughter and ex-wife testified
against him.

In Squamish, five years
went by before a conspiracy of
silence was broken allowing
police to lay a preliminary
charge of manslaughter against
a 25-year-old for the 1997 bea-
ting death of a man at the New
Year's Eve, party. Additional

SCIENTISTS ARE STOMPED!

charges may follow the one
laid June 24, 2002.

Many investigations. would
benefit if citizens got a grip
and told police what they know
about a crime. Police have
often said they depend upon
tips and information from the
public. “You can’t tell how va-
luable a tidbit of information
might prove lo be,” police say.

Certainly whistleblowing is |
scary. Depending upon the
crime, retaliation can range
form job firing, intimidation,
stalking, even threats of harm
to a family member, to as ser-
ious as drive-by shooting or
murder. In Surrey and Vancou-
ver, aver the past 10 years,
more than 50 young Indo-Cana-
dian men have been killed in
drive-by shootings and other il-
legal activities. =

So concerned has the’ com-
munity become gnly a week or

- two ago a meeting was held at-

tended by representatives of
every level of society from a
judge to parents, ;
The meeting was called to
find solutions to the murders.
And for once, families and
friends are talking. It’s time cl-
lizens purse their lips and blow.

" “BUT THE ConseRVATONSTS

HAVE A FLAN... ©

Youre SEND ING
WHO To DO WHAT”

Raa

cee am