FROM PAGE ONE “WORK WEEK” was prepared by the Research Department of the Regional Council and presented to the Forty-Third Regional Convention on behalf of the Committee on Shorter Working Time. During the early 1980’s much of the B.C. wood products industry will undergo exten- sive modernization programs in order to efficiently meet the sharp increases in demand which are anticipated for this decade. These modernization programs should generate substantial improvements in productivity or output per manhour worked. As the industry secures this increased productivity it is important that some of the benefits be used to secure a reduction in the hours that an employee must work in order to achieve a desirable standard of living. Because of limitations of time and space, the discussion which follows will be limited to two major programs: accumulated time off and scheduled paid personal holiday plans. Both of these programs have the same goals, but there is some difference in emphasis. Current Provisions for Paid Time Off Before discussing these proposals for shorter working time it is important to review the current status of provisions for paid time off under IWA agreements in British Columbia. The schedule of annual vacation benefits in IWA agreements is far superior to that found in most other collec- tive agreements in North America. In other words, the numbers of weeks of annual vacation provided for given levels of senior- ity are quite high. Because any form of paid time off is expensive, the current vacation package is very costly. During the current (1980-1981) contract year, for example, the cost of annual vaca- tions under the IWA Coast Master Agree- ment is $1.02 per hour worked. This is by far the most expensive item in the fringe benefit package and costs twice as much as the runnerup item. And the cost of annual vacations and statutory holidays taken together accounts for almost one-half of the cost of the total fringe benefit package in the Coast Master Agreement. There are two problems with the current annual vacation provision. In the first place, the fact that weeks of paid vacation are tied to the employee’s seniority deprives individuals in some sectors of the industry of full benefits. Because the logging sector has been characterized by high rates of turnover, many employees who must change employment to another company lose their vacation benefits. The second problem is that annual vacations do not provide the flexibility of taking time off for periods shorter than one week. Often eaplouees want to take time off one day ata ime. Accumulated Time Off Finding a suitable program of shorter working time which will overcome these deficiencies is complicated by the different working conditions which are found in the various sectors of the wood products indus- try. For example, employees in logging may find a shorter workday to be less useful in a remote location than sawmill employees who face the congestion of rush hour traffic in a metropolitan area. One solution which could meet the needs of employees in all sectors is accumulated time off. Under this provision an employee is credited witha given number of hours of accumulated time off for each 40-hour workweek he completes without inexcusable absences. For example, 2/Lumber Worker/October, 1980 he may receive 4 hours of credit for each workweek. This means that every four weeks the individual will be credited with two days off. He is permitted to take these days off at his leisure — one full day at a time — provided that he schedules the time off at a reasonable time in advance with the employer. In spite of the apparent attractiveness of accumulated time off provisions which have been implemented in collective agreements in other industries, these plans encountered some problems. The most significant of these involved the scheduling of days off. If accumulated time off were credited at the rate of 4 hours for each completed work- week, the average Coast woodworker would receive an additional 25 days per year of paid time off. (This calculation excludes any accumulation of credited hours for the 3 weeks of paid vacation currently enjoyed by the average B.C. Coast member.) This is an extremely large increase and would pose a difficult problem for the employer to schedule enough replace- ments to cover regular job incumbents on their accumulated days off. The situation would be aggravated in the manufacturing sector of the industry in cases where employees want single days off on rela- tively short notice. There would simply be too many employees with 25 days of accum- ulated time off to accommodate on this basis. The problem would be less difficult in logging, however, because employees work- ing in remote locations might be inclined to take all of their days off at one time — for example, during extended periods of layoff. Inability to schedule days off creates two problems. The industry will not be able to schedule production efficiently, thus caus- ing any productivity gains arising from technological change to evaporate. And employees will become dissatisfied over their inability to secure an equitable scheduling of their own accumulated days off. In other words, which employees will be given first priority in scheduling prime or preferred days off? Scheduled Paid Personal Holidays The seriousness of these scheduling prob- lems caused the United Automobile Workers Union to scrap their early accumulated time off provisions in,1976 in favour of a sche- duled paid personal holiday plan. Under this plan each employee is placed in a sche- duling group for the purpose of assigning paid personal holidays. Each group has single days off scheduled during each of 9 periods of each calendar year. (Vacation periods during the summer months are excluded because the need for securing replacements is already extremely high.) Each group’s days off are rotated through- out the weeks of the year so that it will receive an approximately equal share of Mondays and Fridays off. Because of this mandatory system of scheduling additonal days off, every employee is assured of getting a long weekend in 40% of the cases. And where regular statutory holidays fall on Mondays, for example, the group whose paid personal holiday falls on Tuesday will also enjoy a long weekend. The mandatory scheduling of additional days off enabled the Autoworkers Union to overcome the problems encountered in its early accumulated time off plans. That type of solution would go a long way toward resolving scheduling problems in the manu- facturing sector of the wood products indus- try. In the logging sector, however, employees might prefer to accumulate days off to be taken at one time during the year. Because of the nature of the industry the employer might also prefer to have the employees take their days offin this manner rather than pay the additional employment expenses of keeping replacement employees in camp during the short workyear. The current cost of the fringe benefit package, including room and board, may make it cheaper to pay the current employees in one shot than to hire additional employees. The Autoworkers’ Union contract stipu- lates that if an employee is required to work on his scheduled personal holiday, he must be paid at the straight-time rate that he would normally receive for the holiday, and at double his straight-time rate for working that day. This provision for triple pay for working one of these holidays would provide a substantial number of additional days of paid time off during that part of the year when the employee is laid off in the wood products industry. Costing of Shorter Working Time Proposals All of the shorter working time proposals discussed above have one thing in common — there are extremely costly. The IWA Regional Research Department has been performing its own costing of the Coast Master Agreement since 1974. An analysis of the shorter working time pro- posal shows that if time off is accumulated at a rate of 4 hours per week it would cost $1.70 per hour worked ifit were implemented during the current 1980-1981 contract year, and approximately $1.85 per hour during the 1981-1982 contract year. Both of these figures greatly exceed the cost of the total package of $1.50 an hour which was negotiated during the 1979-1980 contract ear. ¥ This figure represents by far the largest IWA settlement on record. Even a modest rate of accumulation of one-quarter hour, or 15 minutes, per day would cost $.46 per hour during the current 1980-1981 contract year and approximately $.50 an hour during the 1981-1982 contract year. There are three reasons why these propos- als are so costly: (1) The size of the average wage in the industry makes all forms of paid time off expensive. (2) An accumulation of 4 hours per week adds up to 25 additional paid days off per employee; and 15 minutes per day would provide each worker with an additional 7.2 paid days off per year. (3) And most importantly, this accumu- lated time off proposal would provide the additional paid holidays of virtually all employees of the industry. Conclusions It should be emphasized that all of these costings are for the shorter working time proposal only, and do not take into consider- ation any additional costs which would be incurred for negotiating improvements in straight-time wages and other fringe bene- fits. The Committee on Shorter Working Time is very concerned that [WA members be permitted to share the benefits of increased productivity in the form of increased leisure time. In view of the costs of such a program, however, it will be impor- tant for the membership to establish a clear set of priorities when they draw up their demands for the 1981 contract negotiations. CONVENTION BACKS GLC CHILE BOYCOTT The regional officers have been instructed by the regional convention to seek the use of T.V. talk shows and other forms of commun- ication to inform IWA members what is taking place in Chile. The convention also endorsed the CLC boycott of Chile because of that country’s governments denial of fundamental free- doms. The Chilian government has imprisoned, tortured and murdered thousands of its citizens in the past few years for daring to demand freedom of thought and speech.