INDEX

1B TOLKO REPORT REJECTED The
union has condemned a report
made by a prominent mediator,
saying it ducked issues/ 2

Il AMERICAN PROVINCES The
IWA has criticized B.C., Alberta
and Ontario for taking steps to
Americanize the forests/3

@ LETTERS PAGE The Allied
Worker welcomes letters from
IWAers across Canada/4

I OPINIONS IWA President Dave
Haggard writes about the cru-
cial situation on the Coast of
B.C. and National Secretary-
Treasurer David Tones writes on
social and economic justice/5

I LINKING THE LOCALS Brief bits
and bites of information from
all IWA Canada locals/ 6-7

@ LIFE BLOOD OF THE UNION In

THE IWA REACTED VERY positively
to an August 1 announcement by the
B.C. Ministry of Skills, Training and
Labour that the government has creat-
ed a Task Force to target the unaccept-
able rate of death and serious injury in
the forest industry.

The announcement comes in
response to the IWA’s September 2002
report on “British Columbia Coastal
Logging Occupational Health and
Safety” which identified 29 solid rec-
ommendations for action by all stake-
holders. The new Task Force is to
develop an action plan to reduce the
unacceptable high rate of death and
serious injury in the forest industry and

will provide recommendations and the
plan to the Minister by late 2003.

“This kind of initiative is long over-
due,” said IWA national president Dave
Haggard. “Despite all our efforts as a
union, workers are still being killed
and seriously injured in our industry.
We are committed to this multi-stake-
holder effort and it is our sincere hope
that the task force can work together to
find some answers to the tragic safety
record in B.C.”

“Over the past 10 years there have
been 250 fatalities in forestry. This is
not a partisan issue and we are pleased
that the government and forest employ-
ers are joining with us to solve the

problem,” added Brother Haggard.
The Task Force will be chaired by
Mr. Douglas Enns, Chair of the
Workers’ Compensation Board. Other
committee members include: Brother
Haggard, IWA National Safety Director
Ron Corbeil, TWA National Safety

Council Chairperson Les Veale,
Coulson Forest Products Ltd. President
and CEO Wayne Coulson, Canfor
President and. CEO David Emerson,
B.C. Truck Loggers Association
Executive Director Jim Girvan, Forest
Industry Safety Association chairper-
son Reid Hudland, and Slocan Forest
Products President and CEO Jim
Sheppard.

northern Ontario
the IWA has orga-
nized health care
workers employed
by the Canadian
Blood Service/8

Bi COAST IN CROSSHAIRS The
IWA membership is getting
contracted out by Weyco as
other companies watch/ 10-11

@ ONWARDS TO ORGANIZE The
IWA and IFBWW are partnering
to support forest workers orga-
nizing in Chile/ 12

SOLIDARITY SIs-
TERS IWA women
had their annual
4 national women’s
education confer-
ence in North Bay,
Ontario in June/ 13

i IWA MILL GOES UP IN FIRE In
early August the Tolko Louis
Creek mill perished in a forest
fire that captured national
attention. Local 1-417 members
lost their jobs/ 14

@ LABOUR LINKED News for IWA
members from the Canadian
Labour Congress and provin-
cial federations of labour/ 16

1B TALKING SAFETY IN

Mediator’s
Tolko
report

IWA says binding
recommendations

duck the important
issues in Manitoba

THE IWA LOUDLY AND clearly reject-
ed binding recommendations handed
down by prominent mediator Vince
Ready on June 12. The recommenda-
tions were requested by the IWA Local
324 and Tolko Forest Industries follow-
ing a thirty-one day strike against the
company that began on January 30 of
this year.

National first vice president Harvey
Arcand, lead negotiator for the union’s
negotiations committee says the IWA
“ended-up with virtually nothing more

TOONDER BAY than we had
Over 150 delegates when the strike
got together in began in late
Thunder Bay, in January, despite
July to take part in our members’

sincere efforts to
seek a resolve.”

~ the IWA‘s annual
National OH&S Conference/ 17

. The strike was
eee: oo

2 s ous issues in
Committee has unique circum- Tolko’s wood-
stances in getting back to the Harvey Arcand lands throughout

bargaining table in B.C./ 18

Wl HIGH TECH JOBBERS The IWA
and Canfor have linked to digi-
talize the job evaluation
process in northern B.C./ 19

@ KNOW YOUR HISTORY The
Allied Worker introduces a new
page on Labour and Social
History to its readers/ 22

@ NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE Your
newspaper introduces yet
another new page on important
economic and social justice
issues in Canada/ 22

the province and
sawmill operation in The Pas. Both sides
had been without a collective agreement
since August 31, 2001.

“We had worked with the company
for over four years to settle outstanding
issues,” says Brother Arcand, “yet Mr.
Ready’s recommendations. saddle us
with a long-term agreement that, quite
frankly, resolves none of the major
issues at hand. His recommendations
duck the important issues at hand, in
our opinion.”

Those issues include the contracting
out of jobs in the sawmill, the unfair

\

PHOTO COURTESY IWA LOCAL 924

= In late January of this year, Local 324 members walked out in the dead of
the winter to put pressure on Tolko as negotiations broke down.

treatment of union bushworkers,
including contract employees, harvest-
ing and hauling rates, the complete
elimination of union log hauling, the
double-breasting of non-union compa-
nies into areas of work traditionally
employing IWA workers, and other
issues.

Mr. Ready’s report calls for a five-year
agreement retroactive to September 1,
with no wage increase in the first year
and two per cent increases in others.

During negotiations with Tolko,
Brother Arcand informed the union’s
committee that the Tolko agreement in
The Pas should be patterned after the
Southern Interior Master agreement
negotiated in the B.C. Forest industry.
The mediator did not match that agree-
ment in several aspects including, in
Tolko’s case, no-cost changes to the pen-
sion plan and job evaluation processes,
according to the IWA.

During the negotiations prior to the
strike, the company dealt with issues
including the union’s pensions
demands — for Tolko employees and
IWA contractors, and pension protec-
tion for former members of the
Northern Wood Haulers Association.
Yet these issues were absent from Mr.
Ready’s recommendations.

Local 324 president Judy Anderson
expressed extreme disappointment that
the mediator did not address the impor-
tant issues at hand that should have

been addressed.

“We expected
much more out of
| this process and
we called off the
| strike to go this
mediation route,”
| she adds. “The
| report is a complete
bust, in our eyes.”

Mr. Ready

Judy Anderson applied the princi-
ple of “replication” which is what Ready
regards as what the parties would have
negotiated had the strike not intervened.

According to the IWA, the mediator’s
recommendations do not “replicate”
what the IWA had already negotiated
before the strike began and are regarded,
in part by the IWA, as sympathetic to
Tolko’s positions.

The union says that the company con-
tinues to force workers to lose wages and
benefits, including pensions, in favour
of non-union contractors.

National third vice president Wilf
McIntyre says that the union believes
the mediator “listened too much to the
employer’s side and not enough to work-
ers’ concerns and that is unacceptable to
our organization.” The union has ques-
tioned the information that Mr. Ready
relied upon to make his recommenda-
tions, which was information requested
by the IWA and is conducting a review
of the decision.

2 | THE ALLIED WORKER AUGUST 2003