“IWA’ STRIKE VOTE OVERWHELMING

- Woodworkers demands are just

By MAURICE RUSH

The kings of the forest in B.C. are crying a river. They claim’ they can’t afford to meet the pay demands of woodworkers this year.

“Markets are bad, profits are down, you'll price yourself out of a job,”’ they said in an expensive full page ad in both Vancouver dailies last week.

They come up with these crocodile tears every time wood- workers ask for a wage increase. It’s nothing new.

But this time they are trying to pull the wool over the public’s eyes on a scale never attempted before. Facts are that since the last. IWA contract was signed, profits in the industry have never been so high, as the box at the right shows.

Nor is the market picture as black.as they make it. Even now the market for pulp and news- print is exceeding all bounds. A story in the Province last week reports that ‘“‘the pulp market is strong,’ and that companies ‘ean sell almost all they can turn out.”

The demand for pulp is so great that the giant forest com- panies have increased the price from $5 to $10 a ton effective July 1 on top of the higher prices

paid in other countries as a result of the floating Canadian dollar.

One company, Columbia Cellulose, added an $8 per ton sur-

charge on top of the price increase. The Province reported that the new price will add about $50 million more revenue to the industry.

Now it is reported that similar rate boosts are being considered for newsprint, which will net the big companies many more millions.

CRY WOLF

The cry that there is no market in sight for our lumber should also be taken with a grain of salt. The clipping reproduced below from the Vancouver Sun, indicates that large markets are expected in the U.S. According to the story the U.S. is aiming for three million more housing units ‘a year by 1974, which will require imports of 11 billion board feet of lumber by 1974.

On top of the huge profits made by the companies during

_the life of the last contract, Cana-

dian forest companies invested $271.4 million for expansion or new mill construction in 1968 and another $353.2 million in

The VANCOUVER SUN: Sat.,

1969: Does that show they didn’t expect a considerable expansion of production?

If the prospect for the coming year is as grim as the forest companies claim, why are they

so anxious to impose a seven-day- -

a-week work schedule, and why are they so insistent on over- time work? That does not jibe with their claims that the industry faces hard times.

Woodworkers’ demands for $1.00 an hour on the base rate of $3.12 is needed by woodworkers and their families to make ends meet. Since the last contract was signed, rising prices, interest rates, and rents have seriously undermined living standards, and purchasing power of workers in B.C.’s _ largest industry.

The facts reveal what the bosses are up to with their cries of gloom: They want to impose a cheap settlement on wood- workers before the new round of expansion and stepped-up production gets underway to meet expanding market de mands.

The game they are playing is -

called ‘‘super-profits.”’ Woodworkers will not be

fooled by the bosses tactics. The

overwhelming strike vote of

June 20, 1970 IAKKDO)

Nixon hints at need for wood from B.C.

By DAVE ABLETT Sun Washington Bureau WASHINGTON —_A repor rele idav Dy PLE

ased Nere

TE DOlts TOL ds delal-f

W OOC = mobia to the United State

SS TAT. e

0 ‘increage is in store for the

tion expecting increased momentum in the housing market lumber prices will be critical.

larger net imports will Dé. Sane eu growing “a : z

In the Washington area, for yim)

example, the median price of a home has gone from $21,000 $27,000 in the last four years. : The report singles out Bri- tish Columbia specifically in -its recommendations. In addition to other action, the report s. “Substanti

‘Bc. “forest industry is not

detailed.

r ia por

But for the indus which complained bitter ha “ata weatd Hit lamb

Tepo

special task ‘force set up to look into. the rapid rise in plywood and lumber prices in

the United States.

“It shows that even with increased production from both public and private US. lands, plus increased imports, the supply of lumber and ply- wood for the U.S. housing market . will’ still fall nearly three billion board feet short

of demand by 1974.

British Columbia has the capacity. to export lumber to the U.S. to mee President Nixon’s call fo increased softwood in th

~ : : a large gap between the statement of a need and steps taken to fill it, according to Gordon Drae- seke, president of the Council of Forest Industries of B.C.

President Nixon Friday urged: increased harvesting of softwood in the U.S. after a

1S: 3

por

While the report looks for a growth in lumber and plywood imports, it also warns against letting such shipments get out of hand.

It notes that authority to contain such import growth is available and it suggested various” U.S. departments monitor both exports and imports and be ready to take, appropriate action. ;

Canadian officials here are

achie bi : wil] consume an addi}

Billion boare eet of jumber D

Two billion of this can come

‘NO MARKET’ CRY A FARCE

A full page advertisement in both Vancouver dailies by the forest companies in which they try to justify their ‘‘no-wage-increase-in ‘70’ plan, makes the point the industry cannot afford higher wages because of the poor demand for wood products in the U.S. The above story from Washington, D.C. gives the lie to their argument. The forest kings are trying to impose a low wage settlement on woodworkers before large scale demands for lumber and pulp bring a new surge of profits to the forest monopolies.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1970—Page 8

1968 Noranda (Northwood Mills) $38,955,000 Crown Zellerbach (Canada) 12,776,000 ‘MacMillan Bloedel 38.800,000 B.C. Forest Products 8.313,000 U.S. Plywood 54,678,000 Evans Product 11,791,000 Weyerhaeuser (Kamloops Pulp) 105,022,000 Domtar 10,834,000

8-Company Total

. .. Profits prove it

1969 39,072,000 13,782,000 42,551,000

9,366,000 64,437,000 14,713,000

131,400,000 17,809,000

$281,169,000 $333,131,000 (Net Profits after taxes)

% Increase

nearly 97 percent expected to be _ the bosses tactics, and are dete” mined to stand united for SU™ stantial contract gains in 1970.

announced momentarily, proves that IWA members see through

ao hor attacked —

under Bill 33

Cont'd from pg. 1

A 60-day ‘‘truce’’ period was rejected last week by the unions, most of whom have been locked out for three months, because it was seen asa move by the contractors to complete a number of key projects on which they are under pressure rather than bargain to reach a settlement.

Fact that the order has employer support was indi- cated by the announcement of CLRA president C. J. Connaghan, immediately follow-

start work again Monday although it would take some time to get into full swing again.”

B.C. Federation of Labor policy and that of the unions involved, on the anti-labor Act

shutdown. At Cominco opel tions, a strike vote will completed this week. i

In a statement widely © ae lated this week the Communit — Party in B.C. condemne government’s action © appealed to all British Colut bians, and the labor move throughout Canada, to expr the most effective way full support to the emb unions in the current © struggle.

“We on our part,’ En statement declared, ‘‘pleds@ | step up the campaign to

ing a subsequent meeting with © : back th the construction contractors SUPPort to beat i-socred representatives that ‘‘the Employer's Coun win industry will be prepared to Government attack, an” ind

the urgently needed wage contract demands. A uf fully coordinated and ganized campaign iS “an needed to break through nd defeat this attack on labor a its living standards.”

passed a year and a half ago is well known. A big question in labor circles last night was “where is the NDP? How come no statement from the Leader of the Opposition or any NDP MLAs?”

In a surprise move in the’ lumber industry, where a 97% strike vote was reported last weekend, following a break- down in mediation efforts

between the 35,000 member IWA and Forest Industrial Rela- tions, the government named an industrial disputes enquiry commissioner under pro- visions of the Mediation Act —

after months of evasion and haggling.

Justice Nemetz — to try and eUREU- ryt) effect a settlement. Lumber i w Wie operators have refused any asi ie Oe me! siti ! increase or contract changes A bere Meee

Clean out your ears, SUT

irc d the 4 and s in ossible Fattled rucial the

ally | ae

ited: ; well ot ; what § a

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Gin

Statements by the Minister of Labor indicate the government is looking for a formula in lumber, which could provide a cheap pattern for settlement of the deadlocked pulp industry negotiations ~ and United Steelworkers Kitimat aluminum and Cominco smelting and ~ mining operations at Trail, Kimberley and Riondel.

Kitimat workers have already voted overwhelmingly for strike and the mediators term of office is running out, with preparations underway for a

COMMISSION Cont'd from pg- 1

-ations on the right to strik picket, and removal of U legal entities which can in courts, along with the of injunctions in labor pots is needed to restore 1am rights in B.C. These rights shoul into a new Charter of Rights to replace the b labor legislation P vert through by the Socred 8°” ment and big business.

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