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PENTICTON — Picket line at Penticton Sawmills Ltd., just before company

obtained injunction limiting pickets.

CASTLEGAR — RCMP officers on scene as IWA pickets stopped Pacific Logging
Co. from starting operations last January.

NELSON — IWA members staging a protest march in downtown streets protesting sebist to open operations with strike

breakers.

FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1968

‘Will not be intimidated

by threats of closure’

IWA warns Clyne:

‘Ready to fight’

Replying to the threat of J. V. Clyne, chairman of the
powerful MacMillan-Bloedel lumber monopoly that he would
‘“‘close down the industry”’ if the IWA persists in its present
contract demands, IWA Regional President Jack Moore
replied thatthe IWA. ’’will not.be intimidated by Clyne’s
threats, and the more threats like this one he issues, the

harder the fight he will get. .

we'll get”’.

President Moore emphasized that
despite Clyne’s ‘‘hard luck”’ story on
behalf of M-B shareholders,
company earnings had increased by
$62-million between 1966 and 1967,
while its capital expenditures
increased by over 100% . . . from $52
million. to $120 million. Last year
MacMillan-Bloedel made $74-
million. ‘‘The money for a
substantial wage increase is there
and we are going to get it,’ stated
Moore.

The termination of the B.C.
Southern Interior IWA strike last
week chalked up a big and important
victory for the IWA and cleared the
decks for another signal victory in
IWA Coast negotiations.

The seven-month strike of the B.C.
Southern Interior woodworkers

» »=+Courtesy Lumber Worker

. and the more of that money

which began last October, has ended.
Over the past weekend some 3,800
woodworkers or 77.3 of the total
involved in this long and bitter
struggle, voted in- favor of the
settlement terms.

International Woodworkers of
America contract demands for a new
Interior agreement centered upon
“wage parity” in all B.C. Interior
lumber operations with Coast wage
standards. This required a straight
50-cents an hour increase to bring
Interior wage rates up to Coast
levels. - :

The settlement arrived at last
week includes a 72-cent-an-hour
wage hike over a 26-month period in
a three-year contract, with a 34-cent
increase when work is resumed, plus
a 12 and 13-cent addition in 1969 and a
further 13-cents on Jan. 1, 1970 to top
the old base rate of $2.26. Some 4.800
woodworkers come under the new
agreement, which will expire shun
30, 1970.

Interior Forest Relations
Association spokesmen representing
some 133 companies, have resorted
to every trick in the book to block
settlement of this seven-months old
dispute, claiming it would bring ruin
to the Interior lumber industry, and
ruthlessly choking off any and all
individual operator agreement with

IWA demands. Even after.

agreement on the current settlement
some big operators are still peddling
the ‘blue ruin” lament, but careful
to keep their profit balance sheets
well hidden from public scrutiny.

They even opposed the Celgar-IWA
settlement months ago, which the
IWA advanced as a workable pattern
for settlement of the entire Interior

lumber tieup. In this. the Association -

has had the full support of Socred
government interference and anti-
union ministerial *‘comment’ on the
dispute, including the most
intimidatory action of all — the
enactment of legislation
“‘legalizing’’ the use of compulsory
arbitration, as stipulated in Bill 33.

According to Syd Thompson,
president of the IWA Vancouver
local, the Interior strike cost the
IWA approximately $100,000 per
week, with an estimated grand total
of $3-million in strike pay since the
dispute began in October of 1967.
This has been made possible by the
generous moral and financial aid
from trade unions.

action

—pages 5,6,7

Added to J. V. Clyne’s threats
against the IWA’s wage demands for
a new Coast contract. Forest
Industrial Relations (FIR) haven't
even presented any offers to counter
union demands. Instead of seeking to
negotiate in good faith FIR proposed
a quarter of a million dollars bond
levy on the IWA against the
possibility of any work stoppages or
“wildcat” strikes, and insisted the

IWA take a strike vote before any

bargaining starts, since according to
FIR, serious negotiations could not
get under way until this ‘customary
procedure was carried out.

These provocative moves are
highly illustrative of FIR’s
determination not to bargain in good
faith, and complement Bill 33
draughtsman Clyne’s threats.

In order to get Coast negotiations
under way the IWA has decided on a
strike vote starting May 21. which
will probably take a week to

See IWA, pg. 12