Thanks to the |.W.A.
for many good years

by Gerry Stoney

t our National Executive Board
meeting on January 30, 1997 I will
hand over the gavel to the I.W.A.’s
new National President. I look back
with pride on almost 40 years of ac-
itive membership.

I began working in the forest industry in
1959 at Canadian Forest Products Plywood
and Hardboard Division where I became a
shop steward in the early 1960's, Local 1-357’s
Safety Director, then plant chair and local Ex-
ecutive Board member. Then the operation
had over 1,000 union members, today it has
less than 200.

I was elected as president of the local in
1971, and served in that position for 11 years.

In 1982 I was appointed to the position of
Secretary-Treasurer of the then Western Cana-
dian Regional Council and became the Nation-
al First Vice President in 1988. I became Na-
tional President in 1992, and was re-elected
twice to that position.

The 1967-68 strike, in which most of the
B.C. Interior membership was out for over
seven months, let us achieve basic parity, simi-
lar wages and working condition rights across
the province, was certainly a highlight.

Then, in 1972, the NDP government under

Dave Barrett was
elected to a historic
first term in B.C.,
with the full support
of the province’s
labour movement,
especially the LW.A.
That NDP govern-
ment and later ones
across the country
did a lot for working
Canadians and our
union can rightfully
share in the credit.
Defence of social
services, and labour
rights, B.C. Forest
Renewal, and many
examples when we
worked together
with the govern-
ment, to save jobs
comes to mind. Spruce Falls, Ontario and
Flavelle Cedar and Evans Forest Products in
B.C. are examples. I am proud of the part we
played in those achievements.

Progress in bargaining and on the political
front came easier in those days than it does
now. Today, unions and democratic socialist
parties both have to struggle against a resur-
gent right wing, and capital that can go any-
where in the world overnight. But the stakes
are huge. We used to have to fight for bigger
wage increases. Now we have to fight for jobs,
for survival, for basic social services and
labour rights.

We established the I.W.A.-Forest Industry
Pension Plan in the early seventies. Today,
with assets of over $1.41 billion, it is the

largest multi-employer
pension plan in Cana-
da.

History will single
out the 1986 dispute,
which saw most of our
members out on the
line for 4-1/2 months
over the issues of con-
tracting out. We took
the leadership on that
issue, and other B,C,
unions acknowledged
that only we could do
it. Then in 1987 we be-
came an independent
national union, as we
left the International
Woodworkers of Amer-
ica to become IWA-
CANADA. We are now
the number one union
in the Canadian forest industry and the largest
private sector union in B.C.

As a union, the I.W.A. has adapted to
changes that would have destroyed lesser or- -
ganizations. We have a proud history of fight-
ing for the rights of workers in the forest in-
dustry and have made an enormous difference
in improving the lives of wood workers, their
families and their communities.

Thave decided that it is time for me to move
on. Over the past few years I have dealt with
serious health problems, and I now want to
spend more time with my family.

It has been a great honour for me to serve
the LW.A. at all levels, throughout my working
life, and I take this opportunity to thank all its
members for that opportunity.

New forest policy

has better balance

by Kim Pollock

le have a new national forest policy.

Passed at our recent national con-

vention, the policy reflects the expe-

rience of several years of land-use

struggle, war in the woods and

changing forest practices. It also in-
dicates clearly the position we will take into future
land-use fights. :

“I.W.A. Canada is dedicated to sustainable
forestry,” it declares.

“That means that we must constantly work to
find a balance between our environmental, social
and economic concerns.”

This is the key element of our policy - balance.

We must take into account “the full range of hu-
man values for our forests,” including biodiversity,
the exchange of gases that makes possible life on
earth, the soils, water and life forms that make up
our forests.

We must also uphold employment creation,
wealth and export earnings and protect the safety
of workers, their families and communities.

The new policy outlines strategies and policies
that governments, workers and industry should
pursue as we fight to make sustainability and bal-
ance a reality. This would realize our goal of a
“green” forest industry, based on a renewable re-
source and capable of supplying wood, paper and
other forest-based products in perpetuity.

“Lumber, wood products and paper satisfy es-
sential human needs,” the Forest Policy notes. “Do-
ing the work needed to produce them is an honor-
able way for Canadians to earn a living.”

Clearly, as members of a union based in timber
harvesting and woodworking, we have a powerful
interest in forest protection and long-term steward-
ship of forested ecosystems.

At the same time, however, our policy notes,
“while we strive to limit disturbance and minimize
impacts, we must remember that we are human be-
ings and that we must transform nature to live.”

This, then, distances us from those who would
substantially restrict timber harvesting and protect
each and every tree. These positions, we note, are
“false environmentalism,” which will simply trans-
fer Canadian timber harvesting to other regions
where forest management standards are less strin-

gent and more poorly en-
forced; encourage substi-
tution of non-renewable
products for wood or en-
courage Canadians to
gobble up other coun-
tries’ forests rather than
produce our own.

“Unless needed to
achieve long-term stabili-
ty, then, reduction of tim-
ber harvest levels in
Canada would do little to
improve the world’s envi-
ronment. It would do
much, however, to eliminate job opportunities, dis-
rupt communities and damage or destroy the econ-
omy of forest-based towns across Canada.”

The policy, therefore, commits our organization
to “carefully scrutinize

ence of national officers like (Fourth Vice Presi-
dent) Harvey Arcand and me and the locals in land-
use processes,” he noted.

“We need a policy we can take to those processes
and show every stakeholder we do care about the
environment, we do care’ about fish, we do care
about the soil but we also do care about our jobs and
it’s not acceptable to lose jobs because someone
sees our traces on the landscape and don't like it.”

Recounting some of the challenges he faced rep-
resenting forest workers at the Cariboo-Chilcotin
land-use table, Arcand noted that “our future is in
land-use planning processes, so the best thing we
can do is unanimously endorse this, because we
need this policy.”

The new policy represents “a forest policy for all
provinces and all I.W.A. members, right across
Canada,” added National Second Vice President
Fred Miron. Although “my job depends on” being a
“conservationist,” he
said, “harvesting timber

all proposals for re-
moval of lands from the
working forest.” Any
proposal must satisfy

The policy reflects the

is a Canadian heritage”;
tourists and the tourism
industry need remind-

these tests: justifiable experien Ci nN d- ing that it was the forest

on biophysical eroundss je We e oe ie “use sector that. Eee the
etter than similar ar- ng’ north accessible.

eas that result in less $ Ugg , & g a img Noting that people

disruption to the work- forest practices. from other countries

ing forest.
“We will particularly

are often better than
Canadian at “bragging

reject proposals based

on aesthetic, cosmetic or other considerations that
lack any scientific basis.” Good-bye visual quality
objectives, good-bye to “singing trees.”

And a warning to environmental groups or pro-
testers: although we are prepared to work with
“conservation groups, communities, industry and
others who share our vision and support our pro-
gram,...we absolutely oppose groups that adopt ter-
rorist tactics or who organize boycotts of our for-
est products.” This goes double for industrial
sabotage or tree spiking, anti-worker, anti-democ-
ratic tactics that aim to main or kill forest workers
or others.

So, there we are: urging government and indus-
try to keep on cleaning up Canada’s forest perfor-
mance, on one hand, but fighting off those whose
agenda is to wreck the forest industry, on the oth-
er. Again, balance:

“This program balances our need for employ-
ment opportunities for a growing number of Cana-
dians with our concern for a clean environment
and vibrant natural ecosystems.”

Debate on the unanimously adopted policy was
led by its chief architect, National Third Vice Presi-
dent Warren Ulley.

“This policy reflects debate at our national con-
ventions over the past five or six years, the experi-

about what they’re go-
ing to do rather than defending what they've done,”
Local 1-85 President Dave Haggard praised the new
policy as “a policy that puts people first” and he
urged delegates to use it to “get out and brag.”

Bill Routley of Local 1-80, in a passionate
speech, reminded delegates of the need to keep on
pushing industry to manage our forests sustainably
and adopt good forest practices. If not for the con-
cerns expressed by I.W.A. in our 1989 Forest Policy
and by others, “they'd still be running equipment
through creeks,” he noted.

Local 1-71 president Darrel Wong agreed and he
outlined problems his members have had in getting
International Forest Products to carry their stated
concern for good forest practices over into the
realm of job creation.

The text of the new policy is available now. To
come is a good-looking brochure version that can
be used by I.W.A. members everywhere and will
make our position clear to the public. As Ulley
says, “it’s unacceptable to apologize. We're doing a
good job and we should say we're doing a good job
- and that’s what this policy says.”

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

4/LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1996