DOMINION TAR STRIKE, SASKATOON ISSUES AT STAKE IWA By JACK MacKENZIE Regional First Vice-President About 65 IWA members employed by the Dominion Tar & Chemical, Saskatoon, have been on strike since Sept. 25. During negotiations which preceded the strike, the cor- poration opposed contract terms which would make sat- isfactory provision for job evaluation as well as hospital- ization and welfare. This situation is in sharp contrast with the agreement reached with MacMillan Bloe- del (Saskatchewan) Ltd., As- penite Division, in the north- ern Saskatchewan area. In the Aspenite Division, we have established a base rate of $1.95 an hour effective Sept. 1, 1966, and a base rate of $2.09 per hour effective Sept. 1, 1967. In addition, the categories of millwright, main- tenance employees and steam engineers gained an additional 10 cents per hour effective Sept. 1, 1966, with a further five cents per hour effective Sept. 1, 1967. A premium of six cents per hour is to be paid for hours worked on afternoon and night shift. Additional fringe benefits were: an additional statutory holiday, Dec. 26, bringing the total to nine; an agreement that the company would pay 50% of the hos- pitalization and medicare (this amounts to $36 a year for married men); and most im- portant of all, job evaluation, which will establish anywhere from one to 30 cents, and pos- sibly more, for categories on the production line. Aspenite Division will also pay a subsidy grant equal to the Saskatchewan government living allowance to tradesmen or apprentice employees of the company, who attend the prescribed Saskatchewan vo- cational training courses. The amount paid by the Saskatchewan government is $50 per week. This means that a tradesman going to voca- tional school will receive a maximum of $100 per week. It has also agreed to pay for people taking first-aid training courses. In other words, the employee will suf- fer no loss of pay, nor will he be required to make any pay- ment for his instruction. THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER EE a ee JACK MacKENZIE . The M&B agreement pro- vides that if a maintenance employee is called out for an emergency, he will be released when the emergency is over and, even if it takes only 10 minutes, he will be guaran- teed four hours’ pay. In addi- tion, if he is called out twice within the same four hours on a different emergency, he will receive an additional four hours’ pay. Dominion Tar & Chemical, however, with some 130 sub- sidiary companies across this country which in turn are subsidiaries of the huge Argus Corporation, refuse to agree to job evaluation, except in a manner that would be abso- lutely meaningless to the em- ployee. Domtar is in agreement with the base rates established at the Hudson Bay operation of MacMillan Bloedel. They have attempted to buy off their maintenance employees and power house employees by of- fering them from five to 15 cents an hour extra imme- diately. In addition, they have offered 8% for all categories over base rate effective Sept. 1, 1966, plus an additional 8% effective Sept. 1, 1967. The present spread between the base rate of $1.82 an hour on the production line and the top rate for machine tender, of $2.07 per hour, totals 25 cents. The company of course is well aware that evaluation would correct the injustice of skilled and semi-skilled em- Around the World Across the Country WE WILL ARRANGE YOUR TRIP 2645 East Hastings Street Vancouver 6, B.C.- Telephone 253-1221 ployees receiving very little more than the base rate. The company agrees to eval- uation, but on the following basis: “The company agrees to develop and complete a job evaluation program of pro- duction jobs during the term of the agreement and prior to Sept. 1, 1968, which shall be acceptable to the union and which shall be applicable to negotiations in 1968.” The union insists that the evaluation shall be developed during the term of this agree- ment, and that all changes developed by the evaluation to the wage scale would auto- matically be added to the wage scale Sept. 1, 1967. The company refuses point- blank to meet ‘50% of the cost for group insurance and Sas- katchewan Medicare. Instead, they have offered to meet 50% of the contributions of the cost of MSI as provided for in the province of Alberta. This would be a contribution of $9.60 per annum to mar- ried employees, with the fur- ther stipulation that upon the federal government interven- tion in the field of medicare, this small payment would dis- appear. (Continued on Page 8) —_. AL BUSCH TONY VANDERHEIDE JOB STUDIES STEPPED UP In order to reduce the present backlog of job requests, Regional Council 1 IWA and Forest Industrial Relations Ltd. have agreed to temporarily re-establish a second team of Plywood Job Evaluators. Al Busch is Union representative on team No. 1. The union will be represented by Tony Vanderheide on this second team. Plants presently under study by the two teams in- clude: MacMillan and Bloedel’s Aspenite division in Hud- son Bay (Sask.); MacMillan and Bloedel’s Vancouver Plywood Division; MacMillan and Bloedel’s Particle Board Division in Vancouver; H. K. Lumber’s Plywood ~ Division in Canoe; Weldwood of Canada’s Cariboo Di- vision in Quesnel; Crown Zellerbach’s Fraser Mills Ply- wood Division, New Westminster; Douglas Plywood in New Westminster; and Evans Products Company Ltd. in Vancouver. IWA IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO. A QUESTION °F KNOW HOW ... and-Pierre Paris & Sons have KNOWN HOW for nearly 60 years. It was then, and still is now, the finest logging boot that money can buy. UNION-MADE PIERRE PARIS & SONS 51 West Hastings Street Vancouver 3, B.C. Family Teamwork in Craftsmanship since 1907