PORT ALBERNI — The all
pervading question in this forest in-
dustry city is, ‘“What kind of crisis
Is it?” Is it just another cyclical
slump, or something worse? Will
Port Alberni’s jobless be called
back to work this summer, or by
fall, or will this devastated com-
munity ever recover from the worst
unemployment crisis that anyone
can remember?

Those questions loom larger
every day in the Alberni Valley, for
as the snow recedes up the Beaufort
mountains, it has not cleared the
ground for the expected economic
upturn in the forest industry.

There are about 800 forest in-
dustry workers on indefinite layoff
in the Alberni region, and most of
the remaining work force will be
working three weeks on and one
week off in March and April.

_ Alberni is sinking into depres-
sion. Several retail stores and
businesses have closed or are clos-
Ing, the inevitable result of

diminished purchasing power and
Shrinking local market. Wood-
wards department store has laid off
Part time staff and cut hours for
full time staff. There are 4,400 ac-
tive unemployment insurance
claims in an adult population of
less than 20,000. Hundreds will be

popularity contests in Alberni dur-
ing he most prosperous times. But
the company’s determination to
ride out the present slump with a
minimum of hardship to itself
while the community reels from the
impact of the crisis, is quickly
drawing class lines sharper than
ever.

Knudsen’s statements and
others by local M-B spokesmen
have been calculated to exploit the

widespread fear gripping the in- —

dustry and to pressure the Interna-
tional Woodworkers of America to
accept wage cuts and a further loss
of jobs through rationalization.

M-B employee relations
manager Jerry Peterson outraged
the community Mar. 3 when he ap-

ed on local television and
threatened that the company may
declare bankruptcy unless costs are
reduced by measures such as a
wage freeze, salary reductions,
layoffs,. and ‘terminations.’’‘‘He
is trying to blackmail the com-
munity,” a furious, unemployed
IWA member responded at the
union office the next day. ““They
are beginning ideological war,”
said another.

Earl Foxcroft, president of [WA
Local 1-85 which represents
workers at M-B logging operations
and at three of its four giant mills in

More than 800 are on indefinite layoff and
even those on the payroll often work only
three weeks out of four.

Tunning out of benefits within the
next few months. Medical and den-
tal benefits for over 400 families af-
fected by the layoffs expired Feb.
28. Personal loans and mortgages
for many are on the verge of
default.
Calvert’ Knudsen, the
,000-per-year chief executive
Officer of MacMillan Bloedel, the
company ‘which completely
‘dominates the economic life of
Alberni, has mused publicly that
the downturn in the forest industry
May reflect permanent structural
Changes in the North American
€conomy which will never see
lumber production reach previus
levels.
M-B officials could not win

Alberni (workers at the pulp mill
belong to the Canadian Paper-
workers Union), insists that there
will be no concessions to M-B.

Wage cuts won’t save jobs, Fox-
croft stated. “‘If we cut our wages,
it won’t sell one stick of
lumber.’’He predicted a slow,
limited recovery over the next
four to five months which could see
about half of the present unem-
ployed list recalled. However the
rest may never find employment in
the Alberni forest industry again.

“Three hundred could be back
working by September. The other
500 jobs are likely lost,’’ says Fox-

croft.
The permanent job loss is due to

Give us back our jobs!

Communist Party rallies
with Maurice Rush,
B.C. leader, Communist Party of Canada

NANAIMO
Mar. 19, 7:30 p.m.
Tally-Ho Hotel, Carrier Room
PORT ALBERNI
Mar. 20, 7 p.m.
Echo Centre
COURTENAY
Mar. 21, 1:30 p.m.
Senior Citizens Lounge
CAMPBELL RIVER |

Mar. 21, 7:30 p.m.
Campbell River Labor Centre

SPECIAL REPORT

Alberni: at the h

the introduction of new machinery
and a limited wood supply which
Foxcroft charges is the result of
overcutting and the lack of
reforestation on Vancouver Island.
The huge Somas sawmill will likely
never regain its third shift, he says,
the the shake and shingle mili
which previously employed 90 ‘‘is
down forever.” .

MacMillan-Bloedel has been
tight-lipped about its future plans
and so far has refused to indicate
how many will be called back and
how many of those presently on
layoff will be terminated. It has so
far kept all of its salaried personnel
on staff due to a ‘‘moral commit-
ment”’ it claims to have for its mid-
dle and upper management staff —
a commitment”’ obviously lacking
when it comes to the unionized
work force. M-B is continuing its
modernization program as well,
spending millions on new
machinery and buildings to in-
crease productivity while ‘‘trimm-
ing down’’ wages costs, as
Knudsen put it.

Ironically, the more productivity
that M-B wrings out of industry
workers the more layoffs result.
That is because of a company for-
mula which links inventory to
costs, charges 1-85 Secretary Mon-
ty Mearns. The company wants to
balance production costs with low
inventory, and if production
boosts the inventory of lumber
products, it will cut costs by laying
off more workers. In other words,
the more lumber workers produce,
the sooner they will be laid off.
Mearns is especially angry over the
company practice of including the
salaries of management staff as
“costs.’? Management personnel
who are kept on staff due to the
company’s moral commitment end
up as a cost factor which results in
layoffs of production workers.

The inventory to cost ratio is ad-
ding to the unemployment crisis by
forcing temporary plant closures in
addition to the layoffs. At Alpulp,
MacBlo’s huge pulp and paper

mill, 60 have been laid off since .

Feb. 18, but two closures, each for
two weeks, the first ever at the pulp
‘mill, are scheduled for April and.
July. At the Somass sawmill, the
biggest M-B operation in Alberni,

workers have just returned to their .

jobs after a three week shutdown.
‘The 550 remaining workers at
Somass — another 500 are on in-
definite layoff — will be working
only three out of every four weeks.
Workers at ws the See
ed plywood mill, have return
Fat aone week shutdown and will
also be working three on and one
off for the next two months at least.

eart oF

FURNITURE STORE CLOSE-UP . .

There are 85 on indefinite layoff.

Only the ultra modern APD
(Alberni Pacific Division) sawmill
seems to have escaped temporary
shut downs, although it has 120
men on indefinite layoff as well.

Logging operations will also be
facing temporary closures in April
and July with the pulp mill. The
Woodland logging division has on-
ly worked four weeks since
Christmas, and the Franklin River
operation was shut down com-
pletely for a week at the end of
February.

The hardest hit by the
unemployment crisis are the
younger workers who were caught
in the first wave of layoffs before
last summer’s strike. The
graveyard shift at APD was laid off
last April and the Somass layoffs
date to last June.

An estimated 200 workers will

. graphic illustration that there is little money to spend.

Union officer Larry Baird has
been spending most of his time in
recent weeks meeting with UIC and
human resources officials and
bank managers, trying to solve per-
sonal problems of IWA members
and to convince government agen-
cies and the banks to apply lenient
policies to the unemployed.

So far there have been no
foreclosure actions on homes by
the banks, although Baird points
out, ‘‘its not for unselfish reasons
on the part of the banks.’’ In fact,
the banks don’t want houses in
Port Alberni which they will be
unable to sell. More homes sold in
Port Alberni in February of 1981
than in the entire last six months of
the year.

Although its possible for most,
at least for the present, to keep their
homes, reduced payment schemes
and second mortgages are piling

M-B is tight-lipped about its future plans
— and about how many will be called back

to work at its mills.

run out of unemployment in-
surance benefits in April, but the
real crunch will hit in June and July
when benefits for 700 will expire.
For families of three or more, swit-
ching to welfare will maintain the
monthly income of $700 that most
receive on UI, or slightly increase it
in the case of large families. But for
single workers or married couples,
income will drop sharply. Singles
can only receive $320 monthly and
couples $540 monthly. In the case
of the single workers, it reduces in-
come below subsistence level.
According to Janis Nairn of the
Alberni Women’s Resource Cen-
tre, ‘‘the largest sector of the poor
in Port Alberni are single parent
women’? and the unemployment
crisis in the forest industry as ad-
ding to their numbers. Women
who worked in the mills had low
seniority and were among the first
to be laid off, and as important, the
subsequent slump in retail business
has locked women out. of jobs

‘traditionally theirs.

Nairn is concerned with the
social impact of the unemployment
crisis. Although she stressed that
there is no statistical evidence to
prove it, home violence is a natural
result of prolongued unemploy-
ment. ‘‘Alcoholism has always
been a problem, and now men are
home more with little to do. The
risk to women can’t help but in-
crease.” ‘

Economic pressures on families
are particularly heavy.

debt loads higher and higher and
decisive action by the banks has
been only temporarily delayed.

In spite of the magnitude of the
depression, which some say is
worse than that of the 1930’s when
the Somass mill was being built,
there are still many who believe that
they will be back at work soon.

As it becomes clear that this spr-
ing won’t that Alberni’s economic

_ deep freeze the pressures will grow

more intense. Alberni has militant
working class traditions, and it is
also a city which had grown use to
having one of the highest per capita
incomes in Canada. It has long
been the base of operations for the
largest multinational company in
B.C. and many felt assured of the
future.

All that has changed. Port
Alberni is a city in crisis, and the
future of its economy, and the
future of its relationship with the
company whose past and present
decisions determine the quality of
life for all of the people in the
Alberni Valley, is very much in
question.

Stories and photos
by
SEAN GRIFFIN
and
FRED WILSON

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 12, 1982—Page 5