_ THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER PLYWOOD EVALUATION _ By AL BUSCH Regional Plywood Evaluator First, a brief review of the origin and progress of ply- wood evaluation in our Regional Council. Plywood evaluation in the Western Canadian forest industry be- gan with the 1955 Contract Negotiations wherein rate re- vision demands by the IWA of some 68 categories resulted In an agreement with FIR on June 22, 1955, to jointly revise job rates according to an agreed-upon evaluation form- ula. Both parties selected their representative on the Joint Industry Job Evaluation Com- mittee, and the study of some 1,000 job categories in eleven plywood plants was under- taken. Installation Negotiable cost items such as wage curve, point range, grade increment, female rate, retroactivity, etc., had to be agreed upon, became involv- ed in the 1959 contract nego- tiations and—on the heels of a lengthy strike — the job evaluation program was in- stalled as an established part of the Coast Master Agree- ment, Accelerated Curve The Union pressed for fur- ther consideration for skilled jobs and as a consequence — outside of Industry negotia- tions—agreement was reach- ed in April, 1963, to change the former pattern of 04c grade increments, with the result of additional monetary gains ranging from 01c to 13c per hour for plywood work- ers in Grade 7 and subsequent grades. Extra Evaluation Team The addition to the evalua- tion plan of numerous new plants, and the results of mechanization in established plants made it necessary for both the IWA Regional Coun- cil and FIR to place another team of evaluators in the field in order to meet the increased demand on the Joint Industry Job Evaluation Committee. Brother Tony Vanderheide is our representative on the sec- end team. Analysis of the Plan Regional President Jack Moore—in conformance with a resolution passed at the 1965 Regional Convention — ordered an analysis of the ex- isting evaluation plan in order to develop suggestions for improvements. The results of these suggestions were pre- sented to a plywood confer- ence of Local Union repre- sentatives and plant review committee members held at Woodworkers’ House in Feb- ruary of 1966. This conference made recommendations which car- ried through the Regional Ex- ecutive Board and the Wages Contract conference into 966 contract negotiations. a fact that the Regional Executive Board had engaged the services of an Industrial HAS PROVEN ITS WORTH BY MEMBERS’ TAKE-HOME PAY of significant assistance to this phase of improving the man- ual and the plan. Evaluation Amendments These Union recommenda- tions concerning amendments for improvement of the eval- uation plan and the manual were subsequently entered into the 1966 coast negotia- tions. The 1966-67 coast con- tract settlement which devel- oped from the negotiations was based on the recommen- dations contained in the “Justice Nemetz” report. The settlement not only brought great monetary benefits to all sections of our industry, but dealt at great length with the subject of plywood job eval- uation. It contained a signifi- cant number of.the Union’s demands for amendments to the manual and improvement to the evaluation plan—with some modifications—the most important of these as follows: 1. The progressive elimi- nation of the 13 cents differ- ential between the male and female rates, This was accom- plished by instituting an in- crease of seven cents to all female rates on June 15, 1966, and a further increase of six cents on June 15, 1967. Thus the long-standing inequity of lower rates for ‘our female members—which was sharply drawn into view by evalua- tion—was eliminated, and a policy of equal pay for wo- men workers in our industry was firmly established in all evaluated operations. Evaluation Amendments Installed 2. The addition to the Ply- wood Evaluation Manual of a new Factor called Manual Dexterity and its additional points. This was designed to developed a better measure- ment of the work of the Spreader crews. The result was an increase of four cents to ten cents per hour for these groups, and, in combination with other manual changes, brought monetary increases to a number of other categor- ies as well, 3. The re-distribution of credit points in the plywood evaluation Manual. This was done to change what is term- ed the “point-weighting” of the Manual. The Union’s rea- son for demanding this re- distribution of points was to concentrate the point values more heavily in the Respon- sibility for Material and. Pro- ducts section of the Manual, than in the Education and Experience areas. This ren- ders the Manual better suited to measure the jobs in our type of industry in a more satisfactory manner. It also forms a step for the future in the direction of gaining mone- tary compensation from the effects of the steady advance of technological change. 4. Retroactive pay from the date that a new job cate- gory was installed. This en- sures that in all plywood operations incumbents of new jobs receiving an evaluated increase, receive the full re- troactive benefit of the in- crease for all hours they had worked onthe job, prior to its evaluation. Changed jobs as always have assurance of retroactivity where applic- able, from the date the Re- quest for Re-evaluation was submitted to the Plant Re- view Committee. 5. Amendments to the Factor in the Manual which is termed Responsibility for Supervision. The Union’s pur- pose for change in this Fac- tor was to bring greater benefit to those of our ply- wood members whose job duties include the responsi- bility of exercising work direction over others. The major amendments accom- plished in the case of this Factor were the deletion from it of the words “foreman” and “disciplinary authority”’. This enabled the Union Eval- uators to attain a greater measure of benefit for those of our plywood members who must exercise a_ significant level of supervision over others. Gains from this Factor amendment alone netted in- creases of five cents to 15 cents per hour. Expansion of Evaluation Upon its initial installation in the B.C. coast plywood in- dustry in 1959, our plywood evaluation progrdm covered a total of eleven operations in ee eee the B.C. lower mainland and Vancouver Island. From year to year since that time, some plants have been expanded, and other plants have been added to the program. The total of evaluated operations has now reached twenty-four. Sixteen of these are situated in the Coast area, four in the Southern Interior of B.C., three in the Northern Inter- ior, and one in Saskatche- wan. At the same time that new plants are brought in to the plan, and initially evaluated, requests come in steadily for re-evaluation of changed jobs and evaluation of new jobs from evaluated operations. Over the years methods have been discussed for mak- ing changes to the procedures presently used by the Evalu- ation Teams, in order to cope with the increased volume of evaluation and related explor- atory work. Recommenda- tions for speeding up the pro- cess of evaluation have been proposed from time to time, but each in turn had to be abandoned or set aside be- cause of a lack of agreement between IWA and FIR policy- makers over some points. Some of the more recent sug- gestions made were put for- ward apparently with the purpose of streamlining the present procedure in the area of obtaining and validating job information and job de- scriptions. This would sug- gest responsibility for much of this preliminary work in the hands of the Joint Plant Review Committee at each operation, with the Industry Committee carrying out the remainder of the evaluation process. However, unless or until changes are agreed upon, the present method must con- tinue. . Major Evaluation Gains At each stage of changes to the Evaluation Program significant benefits resulted. Approximate monetary gains to plywood workers across the industry at each of the im-- portant stages is as follows: Installation of the Program —1959 . More than 72% of the 4500- plus plywood workers in the. industry at that time received wage increases of various amounts, : Approximately 10% of the 4500 workers indicated above were elevated from the basic labour rate as a result of in- creases of 4 cents, 8 cents, and in some cases 12 cents, there- by reducing by 50% the num- ber of people on base rate prior to evaluation. The Accelerated Wage Curve — April, 1963 248 categories involving ap- proximately 1200 workers re- ceived increases ranging from one to thirteen-cents per hour as a result of this change which was worked out apart from overall negotiations. Current Re-Evaluations More than 40% of categor- ies studied are receiving up- ward revisions through re- evaluation and evaluation of newly created job categories in evaluated plants. CANADA'S STRIKE RECORD In 1966 Canada had the second highest strike record among industrial nations, ac- cording to- figures published in the London Economist, June 29, 1968. Here was the standing: Days lost through Industrial Disputes per 1,000 employed, 1966 Italy )23 6 ere 17.00 Canada ee 1,550 United States... ——-—S- 890 Belgium ___...._ 310 France 23 aera res 240 New Zealand 230 Britain. 3 ee 180 Japane sow 170 Sweden _... 110 Netherlands _. 10 However, Canada’s record is not as bad as the figures would indicate. In 1966 man- days lost through strikes in Canada was only 0.33 percent of total working time. In 1967 time lost was only 0.27 per cent. That is, in 1966, 33 days, and in 1967, 27 days, were lost through strikes for every 10,000 days worked. Over a 10-year period from 1956 to 1965, Canada ranked seventh in working days lost through strikes. Sweden dur- ing this period lost only seven days for every 1,000 employ- | ed, but in 1966 Sweden lost — 110 days for every 1,000 em- ployed.