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LUMBER

AUTHORIZED AS SECOND CLASS MAIL, POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, OTTAWA, AND FOR PAYMENT OF POSTAGE IN CASH.

WORKER

Vol. XXXVI, No. 20

VANCOUVER, B.C.

5c PER COPY

S*

2nd Issue
October, 1967

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KEITH JOHNSON

CANADIAN WINS
INTERNATIONAL POST

Keith Johnson, president
of Lecal 1-207 Northern Al-
berta, has been elected Inter-
national second vice-presid-
dent of the IWA, by a major-
ity of 10,000 votes.

He beat G. D. “Shorty”
Carter, local president from
Springfield, Ore., and nomi-
nee of Region 3, the U.S. Pa-
cific Northwest.

Johnson, 37, is the first
Canadian to win Internation-

al office in 25 years. He will
join president-elect Ron
Roley and first vice-president
Claude Ballard, in the Inter-
national headquarters in
Portland, Ore.

He will move to Portland
shortly and will be sworn in
on November 28.

A proposal to raise the per
capita tax to the international
from 75 cents to 90 cents was
defeated in a referendum,

MUNROE RESIGNS

sole arbitrator avpointed in
February, 1962, to settle any
dispute regarding the inter-
pretation of your master
agreement.

I thank you for past cour-
tesies.

BACK STRIKE ASSESSMENT

TO SUPPORT YOUR OWN FUTURE

The IWA Regional Council
has called for unanimous sup-
port by the members for a $5
assessment to ensure that the
union’s strike fund will not be
depleted by the present Inter-
ior strike.

In a message to the mem-
bers, the Council says low
wages in the Interior are a
constant threat to the wage
rates and job security of coast
woodworkers.

It charges that the employ-
ers are provoking a long and
costly strike in the hope that
the strike fund will be wreck-
ed and the union’s bargaining
position in next year’s coast
negotiations weakened.

Says the Council: “It is vi-
tally necessary that the strike
fund be kept at its present
level to back the 1968 nego-
tiations. The proposed assess-
ment is for this purpose.”

The special assessment was
unanimously approved by the
delegates to the recent IWA
Regional convention. If it is
approved, it will start Janu-
ary 1 and continue for the
duration of the Interior strike.

The Council officers calcu-
lated that the assessment will
cost the members less than 20
cents a working day.

In its call for passage of the
assessment referendum, the
Regional Council claims that
the report of Mr. Justice F.
Craig Munroe, the industrial
inquiry commissioner in the
present contract dispute,

means that the Interior oper-
ators should have a low-wage
competitive advantage for
ever, although large corpora-
tions, based on the coast, are
taking over the Interior in-
dustry.

Mr. Justice Munroe, among
other things, recommended a
44 cents an hour increase in
a two-year contract. But the
Council warned that this
would not be effective until
January 1, 1969, and would
still be short of parity with
the coast, which the Interior
workers have demanded.

The judge’s report was re-
jected by an overall majority
of the workers in both the
northern and southern Inter-
ior areas. But in operations
where workers voted against
a strike, the employers have

1967 REFERENDUM \BALLQT

STRIKE FUN

Are you iff tavor
to be palk_inta t
continue for th

YES

NO

INTERNATIONAL WOODWORKERS

per
al Strike Fund, this assessment to
me-duration as the Interior strike?

implemented the report’s
terms.

The Regional Council says:
“The Munroe Report, if ac-
cepted, would destroy parity
and provide the employers
with a club to. use against
coast woodworkers.”

It says the Munroe report
falls far short of the coast
contract in other provisions
than wages — in such clauses
as shift differential, loggers’
travel time and category rate
revisions. :

“Tt also fails to provide sim-
ple justice for Interior wood-
workers who, on lower wages,
must pay 10 per cent higher
living costs than at the coast,”
the Council says. “They work
as hard and produce as
much.”

AMERICA

ember a month assessment

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aes

SOLIDARITY PLEA WINS BACKING

AT B.C. FEDERATION CONVENTION

Affiliates of the B.C. Fed-
eration of Labour closed ranks
behind a unity plea by IWA
Regional president Jack Moore
in the dispute arising from
the suspensions of four IWA
locals earlier this year.

The convention passed a
resolution which said: “In the
interests of building a united
labour movement, be it resolv-
ed that the Federation use its
offices and influence and
every means at its disposal to
ensure that all affiliated un-
ions keep their troubles out
of the public eye and present
a united front to manage-
ment,”

This resolution was present-
ed by the resolutions commit-
tee after another motion call-

ing for re-affirmation of an
earlier motion that all affili-
ates keep their troubles pri-
vate was referred back.

The Vancouver, Victoria,
Duncan and Lumber Inspec-
tors’ Locals were suspended
by the Federation executive
in June after they refused to
make a public apology for a
statement they issued criticiz-
ing former Regional president
Joe Morris, now executive
vice-president of the Cana-
dian Labour Congress.

They contended that the
Federation had no authority
to take this action under the
resolution, passed two years
ago, calling on affiliates to
keep their troubles private.

The IWA
protested the Federation’s ac-

Regional Council -

tion and, on the recommenda-
tion of the CLC, the four Lo-

cals were reinstated in the
Federation.

Syd Thompson, president of
Local 1-217 Vancouver, told

- the convention delegates that

the original resolution on the
matter meant absolutely noth-
ing. He said unions cannot
have their constitutional right
to make public statements on
behalf of their members taken

away by a federation or the
CLC:

Belonging to the Federation
is a voluntary decision of the
affiliates, said Thompson, and
the Federation cannot have

See “PLEA” Page 4