PRESIDENT’S MESSA\

Secure employment must be treated seriously

by Gerry Stoney

‘yn an economy where, more and more, | __ the pace and direction of change is being

' set by large corporate interests outside

' of Canada, a recent series of articles in

| the New York Times has provided a chill- ._ + ing reminder to trade unionists, both in this country and in the United States, as to the’ kind of values and thinking thathave become dominant.

Probably the most revealing comment from these articles was a quote from an AT&T vice president on the future of jobs and work. Ac- cording to this executive: “People need to look at themselves self-employed, as vendors who come to this company to sell their skill.”

He then went on to say that at AT&T “we have to promote the whole concept of the workforce being contingent.”

For this executive, jobs are being replaced by “projects” and “field of works” and all of this is giving rise to a society that is increas- ingly “jobless but not workless.”

For woodworkers these comments are a throwback to the struggle we faced in B.C. in 1986 when employers in the province decided that their version of “joblessness” was going to be contracting out.

They wanted to have unfettered access to

contracting out and they wanted lan- guage in the collec- tive agreement that would allow that to happen. After four and a half months of striking we suc-+ ceeded in sending a message that wood- workers see secure jobs as paramount and would press that case at every opportunity.

Not surprisingly, workers in other sectors of the Cana- dian economy have faced similiar strug- gles and have been forced to counter the push for less job certainty with some fairly dramatic measures. Whether it has been in the automotive sector, the steel industry or the public sector, the concern has been the same; workers deserve fair treatment in a changing economy and job security has to figure promi- nently in any assesment of what is fair.

We in the I.W.A. don’t believe employment should be treated with indifference by either employers or governments. Good jobs are the mainstay of every community; undermine steady employment and you undermine that community.

In both Canada and the United States, that issue of confidence is only now beginning be- come a mainstream concern of governments.

For too long the obses- sion of debt, deficit and zero inflation have been elevated to centre stage.

The whole concept of full employment and vital communities has been relegated to the back burner. And therein lies the prob- lem: pushing workers to the margins with high unemployment only guarantees that the downward spiral will gain speed, not re- verse itself.

For their part the federal Liberals have swallowed the deficit hysteria hook, line and sinker and are now trying to ignore the real consequences; unemployment, community in- stablity and economic stagnation.

Workers are not disposable commodities. Their employment deserves security and pro- tection, not the “contingency” status that the AT&T executive is promoting.

It’s time to get back to basics. We need gov- ermmments who accept that their role is to pro- mote and protect full employment strategies. We need governments who take responsibilty for the unemployed and provide solid income and training support during the tough times.

Any less effort by governments will only serve to insure a race to the bottom where workers and their commununities lose.

LANDS AND FORES

Spotted owl case hits British Columbia courts

by Kim Pollock

ast month I spent two days in court. The Supreme Court of British Columbia, if you

_ please. bes) No it wasn’t my atrocious driving record | sor problems with my bank balance. In fact I wasn’t in the dock at all.

No, that dubious honour went to a usually-up- standing citizen, provincial Chief Forester Larry Pedersen.

Pedersen’s figurative appearance resulted from his determination of the annual allowable cuts for the Fraser and Soo timber supply areas, two huge chun of Crown forest in the Lower Mainland of

And it wasn’t that the AAC was too low, even though Fraser's annual harvest was reduced by 12 percent and Soo’s by 13 percent.

No, Pedersen was being challenged for allegedly setting harvests too high.

The action was brought by Sierra Legal Defence on behalf of the Western Canada Wilderness Com- mittee.

The two green groups want the court to throw out chief Pedersen’s determination on the grounds that in deciding on the harvest level for the two ar- eas, he failed to take into account the habitat needs of the northern spotted owl.

They told Mdme. Justice Allan that Pedersen should have withdrawn timber volumes to reflect the needs of the owls.

Crown lawyer Angela Westamacott countered that under the provincial Forest Act, land-use deci- sions are the responsibility of Cabinet; that Cabi- net has not yet decided on a strategy for owls; that it would be improper for Pedersen to presume to. make a decision on land-use and that he clearly in- dicated as much when he outlined the reasons for his determination.

Lawyer Maureen Headley of Banister and Com- pany and I were there to make sure that the views of forest workers were heard in the matter. We said that a ruling on the owls by the chief prior to the Cabinet's decision on the matter would preju- dice our ability to take part in the political process leading up to a decision.

In the end, Judge Allan upheld the Chief, ruling that the AAC should stand. But you can bet WCWC will be back.

Why does all this matter?

It clearly shows the re- sources available to groups to WCWC.

And it shows that we in Canada are not im- mune to some of the processes that have so seriously tied up the tim- ber industry in the Unit- ed States.

Remember, it was con- cerns about the spotted owl that led to a massive reduction in the amount of timber available for harvest on public lands in the U.S. Pacific North- west. In fact, harvest levels were cut by more than 80 percent in the course of about five years, at a cost of some 30,000 direct forest sector jobs.

Now Canadian green groups appearing to be “playing the owl card”

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the noisy, long-running fight around northern spotted owls is that it needn’t be happening. That’s because a strategy to preserve owls and their habitat and carry on timber harvesting is perfectly plausible.

In fact, such a strategy has been developed and shopped to government and conservation groups by International Forest Products of Vancouver. Interfor is the largest licencee operating in the Canadian range of the spotted owl. Their plan would involve substantial use of areas that are al- ready protected - a “corridor” of parks runs right through the birds’ British Columbia range - as well as the huge public watersheds that provide drink- ing water to Greater Vancouver and the wide- spread areas that are inoperable or innaccessible to loggers (the “working forest” takes up only about a fifth of the land-base of the two timber supply areas).

And lest you should think that this is nothing

more than a self-serv-

in a very big way, as well.

Besides WCWC’s pe- tition for judicial re- view of the Chief Forester’s Fraser-Soo decision, the major preservation groups are pushing hard for feder- al endangered species legislation. As I noted

We in Canada are not immune from some of the processes that have seriously tied up timber in the United States

ing exercise by a pow- erful licenseee with a vested interest and lit- tle else, the Interfor proposal has won at least cautious applause from environmental sci- entists such a Dr. Karl Walters of the Universi- ty of British Columbia. This is not to say that

in my previous column, Ottawa plans to bring legislation before the House of Commons later this year.

Our union’s legal opinion, prepared by Banister and Company of Vancouver, clearly shows that, as currently proposed, Ottawa’s bill could allow most of the same impositions on the forest industry that have stymied timber harvest operations in the U.S.

Just like the U.S. Endangered Species Act, the federal proposal requires the courts to take into account little else than the needs of a species; no need to consider jobs, no need to consider com- munities; no need to consider alternatives that bal- ance social, economic and environmental needs.

A broad coalition of forest industry, forest worker, farm, ranching, community and hunting- and-trapping organizations have pushed for changes that would make the proposed bill more responsive to workers’ and communities’ con- cerns. But at the same time, green groups have also been pushing for changes - changes in part that would allow them even more wide-open ac- cess to the courts.

Obviously, that sort of “citizen standing” to bring legal challenges to species recovery plans would do little for average citizens. But it would vastly increase the power of well-heeled single-in-

terest groups bent on tying up the forest sector.

all resource conflicts around the habitat needs of endangered species can be readily or easily solved. It’s much more dif- ficult, for instance, in cases like the fishery, where potentially-endangered species not only depend on the target resource for habitat, but actually are the target resource.

Still it does lend at least some creedence to the suggestion that “win-win” solutions are possible if we simply look for them instead of deciding that we're always faced with “either-or” choices.

Unfortunately, there are groups in our society that can only flourish in a crisis atmosphere. If you depend on constant financial appeals for your sur- vival, it’s conceivable that more people will con- tribute if they believe that if they don’t the world - or the existence of some special species - is about to end than if they think they are supporting some kind of murky compromise.

Under these circumstances, we will likely see a continued push for “either-or” solutions to land- use conflicts: more one-sided legislation, more le- gal actions.

I'm afraid we're going to find ourselves in court again and again.

Kim Pollock is the Director of I.W.A. CANADA’s Environment and Land-Use Department.

4/LUMBERWORKER/MARCH, 1996

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