himself on his good employee

wa) NEWS OF THE LOCALS

1-118 ELECTIONS

Ed Haw, Financial Secre-
tary of Local 1-118 IWA, Vic-
toria, since 1952, has been
re-elected for another two
year term in the referendum

ballot recently conducted in
the Local Union.

Murray Drew, the Local’s
President was unopposed in
the nominations.

Other successful candidates
for office were, Joe Fowler,
1st Vice-President; Al Carle,
2nd Vice-President; Roger
Lewis, 3rd Vice-President;
Dick Emerson, Recording-
Secretary; Darvis Cook, War-
den; Tom Ainsley, Conductor;
Six-Year Trustee, Dick Mor-
rison; Four-Year Trustee,
Walter Rosenberg.

The officers will be installed
in office at the Local’s regular

ED HAW

monthly meeting January 23,
by one of the Regional officers.

ROSS INGLIS

WORKING
RELATIONS

Local 1-424 IWA President
Ross Inglis reports that one
of the employers in the Prince
George area who professes
keen interest in maintaining
good working relations with
the crew, forced twenty of his
employees to work'from 4

p.m. to 1:30 a.m. New Year’s
Eve.

This employer, Inglis ad-
mits, didn’t violate the Union
Agreement as the time work-
ed was the crew’s normal
shift. He pointed out, how-
ever, that the other employ-
ers in the area recognized the
oceasion and closed down
their operations so that their
employees could celebrate the
New Year.

Inglis stated that it is ex-
amples like this that needless-
ly strain management - em-
yee relations, He added
employer, who prided

has lost their re-

BANQUETS

The Annual Shop Stewards’
Banquet sponsored by Local
1-118 IWA, Victoria, for the
Stewards and Committee
Members will be held Febru-
ary 12, at the Club Tango.
The affair is one of the social
highlights of the Local Union
and provides an opportunity
for the Union to express its
appreciation for the work ac-
complished throughout the
year by these key members.

Officers of the C.P.S. Sub-
Local of Local 1-118 report
that the Sub-Local is holding
its Banquet February 5, at
the Sooke Golf Course Club
House.

ORGANIZATION

Regional organizer Vern
Griffith and Local 1-424 Bus-
iness Agent Fred Ibis have
recently organized the McColl
Forest Industries Ltd. at

Burns Lake, report officers of
Local 1-424.

There are approximately
thirty employees in the opera-
tion. Certification is pending.

SUBMISSION

The Canadian Labour Con-
gress will make its annual
submission to the federal gov-
ernment at 10 a.m. on Tues-
day, Feb. 15th. A big turnout
of CLC affiliates is expected,
as usual.

Just swamp her out a bit . . . big enough fer a crummy ta turn in...

"SUSPENSION OF WORK™

Celgar Limited, with woods
operations in the Terrace area
and a sawmill located in
Prince.;Rupert, was at one
time known by us as one of
the better large companies to
deal with in resolving prob-
lems in the area of Industrial
Relations. This doesn’t mean
to imply that problems or
grievances which arose were

- necessarily settled to the sat-
isfaction of the Union, but
that such problems were usu-
ally discussed promptly and
in a reasonable manner. Com-
pany decisions were also made
without undue delay so that
the grievance procedure pro-
visions of the Agreement pro-
vided the means by which
such past problems could be
dealt with.

t

Over the last several
months, however, the Local’s
Plant Committees in the Com-
pany’s Terrace and Prince
Rupert operations have been
encountering frustrating at-
titudes in their attempts to
resolve current grievances.
The Company has either taken
totally unreasonable original
positions which they refuse
to modify, or have not taken
any position at all, in order
to delay indefinitely any pos-
sible solution to the matter.

These tactics have resulted
in no grievances being settled
at the plant level and indeed
very few being settled at the
Local level, except through

_.“Right of Reference,” or other
“methods under which the
question is no longer the
property of the Local and the
Company, and under circum-
stances where unreasonable

Company positions no longer
prevail.

Such examples include a
question recently determined
by the Board of Industrial
Relations and another. ques-
tion which was to have gone
before the Interpreter of the
Agreement on January 6th.
In the case of the latter ques-

»

By BILL WILSON

Financial Secretary, Local 1-71

tion, the Company capitulated
and agreed with the Union’s
position the day before Chief

BILL WILSON

Justice Munroe was to hear
the case—“another delay until
the eleventh hour.’ ”

In Prince Rupert Sawmills,
membership frustration reach-
ed its peak on Friday, Janu-
ary 7th, and finally resulted
in a complete work stoppage
of that plant on Monday, Jan-
uary 10th, because of the fol-
lowing general circumstances.

On Friday, the 7th, an em-
ployee was suspended for the
remainder of his shift for
allegedly refusing to obey an
order. The same person was
present as a member of the
Plant Grievance Committee
later that day when the Com-
mittee and Management met
to discuss several other
grievances. The question of
the Committee Member’s sus-
pension was not on the
agenda of the meeting. Dur-
ing the course of the meeting
the Mill Manager demanded
an apology from the Commit-
teeman who had been sus-
pended, which was refused.
The Mill Manager then added
two weeks to the individual’s

original suspension because of
his refusal to be intimidated
in an obvious maneuver by
the Manager to embarrass the
Committee and restrict their
effectiveness.

The crew of Prince Rupert
Sawmills, on learning of this
latest incident of arrogant
disregard for the dignity of
individual employees and
their elected committee, took
the position that work in the
plant would be suspended
until the Committeeman was
reinstated. This course of ac-
tion was made necessary on
Monday when a last-minute
attempt by the Committee to
talk reason with Mill Man-
ager failed.

It is significant, too, that the
Company in trying to counter-
act the actions of its crew
did not depend on further
Union-Management meetings
entirely, but resorted to

‘ phone calls to each individual

employee with the false mes-
sage that the dispute had
been settled and with an
order to return to work. In
addition to this, the Company
threatened individual employ-
ees that they had called the
RCMP to escort them as un-
desirables from Company
property, even though a bunk-
house for a number of em-
ployees is situated on Com-

pany property.

A meeting held in Prince
Rupert on the 11th between
Local Secretary - Treasurer,
Brother W. H. Wilson; Local
Business Agent, Brother fk.
Ollenberger; the Prince Rup.
ert Sawmill Committee and
Company representatives did
not meet with success in re
solving the issue because,
primarily, the Company was
not prepared to admit that
they had made a mistake and
reinstate the Committeeman

See “SUSPENSION”—Page 4