¢ A two man team of labour lawyer John Baigent (right) and I.W.A. National

Representative Scott Lunny worked on the union’s submission to the Labour Relations Board, taking on a battalion of MacBlo lawyers.

Union battles MacBlo at Labour Relations Board hearings

MacMillan Bloedel’s all-out efforts to divide and conquer I.W.A. CANADA members in British Columbia have landed both the company and the union in front of the B.C. Labour Rela- tions Board. The union has made its case that the Council of L.W.A. Locals, consisting of Locals 1-71, 1-80, 1-85, 217, 363, and 1-3567 should be the legally recognized bargaining agent for all of the I.W.A.’s certified solid wood operations on the coast.

In August of last year, sub-local union representatives from MB opera- tions met in Nanaimo with members of the I.W.A. provincial negotiating committee and gave the committee their full support to do everything possible to prevent MB from splitting up the union after having deaccredit-

Dave Tones wins election as new National 3rd V.P.

The union has a new National Third Vice President in the name of Dave Tones, former President of New West- minster-Fraser Valley Local 1-3567. On January 30, Brother Tones took the oath of office following his victory in a national referendum ballot (see election results - page one).

Born in Ocean Falls, Brother Tones first started at the pulp mill in 1966 at the age of 18 where he was a member of the International Pulp and Sulphite union. He started out on clean-up and then moved on to jobs on the boom, and as a cut-off saw operator in the sawmill.

In 1971-72, he was employed at what is now the Eurocan pulp mill in Kitimat, as a member of the PPWC. Then, in 1974-75 he went on to the MacMillan Bloedel Harmac pulp mill on Vancouver Island as a rank and file member of the then CPU.

Eventually Tones was employed at the Bay Lumber sawmill in Maple Ridge where he became an I.W.A. committee member in 1976. Following a short stint as first vice-president of Haney Local 1-367, he became presi- dent in 1982.

Tones served as President of Local 1-367 until 1992 when it merged with

ed from Forest Industrial Relations.

MB applied to leave FIR in June of last year and was granted the right to do so two months later. In efforts to protect its members from being picked off in operation-by-operation bargaining (what MB terms “enter- prise bargaining”), the I.W.A. Council has vowed to sit down and bargain with the giant forest company as one unit.

MB pulled out the stops after the union made a preliminary application by legally challeging the status of the Council and whether or not it had the full support of union members.

But on January 22, an LRB panel, headed by vice-chair Emily Burke, ruled that MB’s objections to allowing the Council to apply to bargain for all

° Third V.P. Dave Tones

New Westminster Local 1-3567 to form the new Local 1-3567, which to- day is one of the I.W.A.’s largest juris- dictions in terms of membership.

He served in that position until be- coming a national I.W.A. officer.

“I have been a member of a number of unions over the years and can say for certain that it is a great honour to represent I.W.A. members on the na- tional scene,” says Brother Tones. “I want to thank all of the people from my local and from across the country that supported me during the election campaign.”

One of Brother Tones’ major re- sponsibilities will be that of national officer responsible for education. He has been active in education circles for a number of years.

Tones sits on the B.C. Federation of

its members employed by the compa- ny, would not be allowed.

Union lawyer John Baigent said that the Council has every right to Taree all its members working for “When a company accredits to an employer association, the union doesn’t have any right to challenge the application,” said Baigent. “Why should the employer get to challenge aunion bargaining association?”

However, MB stuck its nose into the I.W.A.’s internal democracy and argued, unsuccessfully, that the Coun- cil did not have the support of union members to represent their collective interests in front of MB.

A vote of I.W.A. members in MB op- erations showed that the members 95% are in favour of the Council of LW.A. Locals.

LW.A. CANADA National President Dave Haggard says that the company has started an unnecessary fight with the I.W.A., which has represented MB workers for decades.

“MacBlo has an awful lot of go- dammned nerve to hire a bunch of hot shot lawyers to go to the LRB and pre- vent us from democratically repre- senting our members,” says Brother Haggard. “By deaccrediting from FIR there is no doubt that they are out to bust up our union. That will not hap- pen because I.W.A. members in every camp and mill are united and will not see themselves divided and picked off one by one.”

The union, following its B.C. provin- cial wage and contract conference held in Vancouver on February 27 and 28, (See story page one) has voted on it demands for association bargaining with FIR and employer associations in the province’s northern and southern interior regions. The same benefits will apply to MB.

In its efforts before the LRB, MacBlo is trying the legally compel the I.W.A. into operation-by-operation bargaining. The I.W.A. is making every effort to take on MB at one bargaining table and preserve FIR as a stable bar- gaining agency for employers.

Brother Haggard says that MB’s deaccreditation from FIR and subse- quent opposition to the Council of L.W.A. Local has had a destabilizing ef- fect on labour relations.

“That's not what the forest industry needs at this point in history,” says Haggard. “And the top MacMillan Bloedel brass should realize that tak- ing us down a path of confrontation

Labour Education Committee and also represents the J.W.A. on the CLC Education Committee.

He currently remains the President of the New Westminster and District Labour Council after taking that posi- tion in 1994 following the retirement of Joe LeClair, former first vice of 1- 3567.

Tones has over 10 years of experi- ence as a certified educational in- structor, teaching classes on week- ends for CLC affiliates and attending CLC Winter Schools.

Local 1-3567 has a tradition of annu- al education conferences and annual safety conferences.

“I believe that if we educated our committees in the plants and camps, they will take care of most union af- fairs,” says Tones. “They are the fu- ture leadership who will be activists and organize for this union.”

Some of the top priorities for I.W.A. CANADA is to organize and educate its membership, in terms of policing the collective agreement, political ac- tion and occupational health and safe- ty issues.

One of the demands for this year’s master agreement negotiations with the forest industry is a province-wide educational fund. The union is de- manding that employers pay 5 cents for each hour worked into an educa- tion fund.

“If we get that it will be a huge ad- vancement for our organization,” says Tones. “In Ontario local unions have led progress in this area and we

The union represents about workers covered by 13 v Terry Smith, National Secretary surer, says that MB has thrown con- siderable resources into splitting UP association bargaining, undermining FIR, and creating anxiety amongst union members. 2

“Our attempts to acheive stability in

the forest sector are being met by ma- jor resistance by this company as it knows we are out to foil their plans and prevent ‘enterprise bargaining’, says Brother Smith. Gary Kobayashi, president of Van- couver Local 217, an a part-time mem- ber of the LRB, says the Board “has never allowed a company to force its way this far into the internal union af- fairs and I doubt that any other com- pany would even try.”

Following the LRB’s rejection of MB opposition to the the real issue left to be decided is whether the com- pany will have to bargain all of its units with the Council or whether it can pursue operation-by-operation bargaining.

The Board instructed both sides to send in written submissions of evi- dence that were to be no more than 50 pages in length. Appendixes on both sides’ interpretations of logging and production process were attached to those submissions.

There were numerous back and forth replies between the parties fol- lowed by two days of LRB hearings on March 11 and 12.

MB argued extensively about its historical problems with association bargaining, the complexities and com- petitive nature of the industry and the company’s difficulty in implementing “workplace innovations” such as gain sharing.

However Baigent quickly pointed out that the issue was much simpler and narrower than MB made it out to be.

He went on to note that LRB ju- risprudence accepts that one bargain- ing unit provides inherently more sta- ble labour relations than a fragmented, multiple unit structure.

“The LW.A. doesn’t like that MB is out of FIR but it accepts the fact,” says Haggard. “What has to be decid- ed is, now that they are out, should there be one set of negotiations or eighteen.”

A decision from the Labour Board is expected by mid-April.

would like to follow suit in B.C.”

“I think that in the I.W.A. that we should meld our efforts into making a successful national education pro- gram that consists of strong educa- tional programs in local unions,” he adds. “At the national level we need to provide resources to local unions in order that they can train LW.A. train- ers and instructional facilitators.”

During the campaign, Brother Tones traveled in northern and cen- tral Ontario and the northern interior of B.C.

He has been a co-chair of the Cam- paign Labour Committee of the Unit- ed Way for the Lower Mainland for the past two years, where many social issues are addressed. Tones sits as a member of Cabinet of the United Way which oversees organizational activi- ties.

His experience also encompasses being the past president and execu- tive member of the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows NDP riding.

20/LUMBERWORKER/APRIL, 1997