VANCOUVER, B.C. REGIONAL 3rd Vice-President Neil Menard is shown swearing in the officers and Executive Board Members of Local 1-423 IWA, Kelowna. Left to right — Neil Menard; Des Hickey, 2nd Vice-President, Crown Zellerbach, Kelowna; Bill Schumaker, President; Bill Oner, Recording Secretary, Crown Zellerbach, Lumby; Stan Anton, Warden, Crown Zellerbach; George Duley, Conductor, Weyerhauser, Lumby; Dell Welder, Financial Secretary ; John Keyes, Area Board Member, Northwood Mills Ltd., Okanagan Falls; Jack Welder ist Vice-President. Missing from picture are Les Goddard, 3rd Vice-President, Pope & Talbot, Midway; Jack Lomax, Six-Year Trustee, Crown Zellerbach, Kelowna; Angus Manson, Area Representative, Pope & Talbot, Grand Forks; Richard O’Grady, Area Representative, Northwood, Princeton. ANOTHER “FIRST” FOR IWA MINORITY GROUPS OFFICER HIRED The I.W.A. in Western Can- ada is setting the pace again — this time in. building better ethnic and race relations. When Regional Council President Jack Munro on September 12th announced the appointment of brother Lyle Kristiansen of Nelson as “Union Minority Groups Rela- tions Officer’? for I.W.A. Region No. 1, it marked the first time that a Canadian labour organization has em- ployed a full time person for exclusive work in this impor- tant and sensitive field. SEYRET MS CL LIE |e COUN OT. RETURN REQUESTED THE LUMBER WORKER 2859 Commercial Dr.. Van The action and appointment flows from a February/77 funding application by the I.W.A. Regional Council Offi- cers and a subsequent one year grant of $30,000 from the federal Secretary of State. It comes at an opportune time. In his letter accompanying the I.W.A. grant application, President Jack Munro outlined our current situation and problems as follows: ‘The industry our members work in tends to attract a rela- tively great number of workers from minority groups. In the northern parts of the pro- vinces, a indigenous native people be- come members of our union. In recent times, there has been a large influx of (East) Indians into our membership ranks in the B.C. Lower Mainland and in northern B.C. communities. A good number of our (I.W.A.) stewards and committeemen come from the ranks of minor- ity groups. great number of. In periods of economic pros- perity, we seldom encountered any serious problems of racial discrimination or _ racial conflict. When these occurred, our organization was generally able to cope with and resolve them. However, in the last few years, especially with a great influx of workers from minor- ity groups entering our mem- bership and also because of the general economic downturn, some very serious problems of race discrimination have occurred. Largely due to luck and actions on the part of our Union, we were able to contain them. Workers who feel insecure in economically troubled times tend to fall prey to the call of bigots or reactionary elements who have built-in hatred against minority groups.” In response to this state of affairs, the new Minority Groups Relations Officer was put on Regional Council Staff, See ““HIRED”’ pg 2 PENSION NOTICE The Lumber Worker will be publishing in future issues a series of articles written by Regional Pension Director Jack Washburn on the changes to the IWA Pension Plan. It is intended that these articles will help to explain some of the more complex aspects of the Pension Plan so that IWA members will more fully understand how to go about applying for a pension. poe "PER CAPITA TAX INCREASE RECOMMENDED - | While the - 40th Anniversary Convention of Regional Council No. 1, was relatively quiet, a vast amount of business was accomplished and a number of highly important issues at- tended to. Chief among these was the Convention’s decision to recommend raising the per capita tax to the Region by one percent. The one percent in- crease is subject to ratification by the membership by refer- eraure ballot. However, the majority of the Local Unions indicated strong support for the measure which suggests the increase will carry. The increase would give the Regional Council an additional $125,000 a year to expand serv- ices to the members. The Convention also ap- proved a resolution instructing the Regional officers to find adequate quarters to house the Regional officers and staff. The resolution stated that the present Regional headquarters (Woodworkers’ House) has been too small for years and it makes no sense to continue to have staff people quartered away from the main office. The Convention. delegates devoted a great deal of time to discussing ways and means to prevent other unions raiding IWA jurisdictions and finding — the best way of achieving one union in wood. The decision was made to leave the matter in the hands of the officers to take whatever “steps were necessary to ac- complish this goal of ensuring that the one union in wood was the I.W.A. The delegates also indicated their pleasure with this year’s one Provincial Negtiating Committee by instructing the officers to prepare a program with the goal of achieving one’ Master Agreement for all B.C. IWA ‘members in the next round of negotiations. Charging that mandatory retirement at age 65 was-dis- crimination, the Convention voted approval for a resolution to be submitted to the next International Convention which would allow anyone the right to retire at any age they wished. A number of guest speakers" ‘were heard during the five day Convention and included Cana- dian . Labour Congress President Joe Morris, NDP Federal Leader Ed Broadbent, IWA International President — Keith Johnson, Bill King, the former NDP Labour Minister, International 1st Vice-Presi- dent Fernie Viala, and a number of others. Host local for the Convention was Local 1-417 Kamloops and Bill Hobbs, Local President opened the meeting with a short speech of welcome. Auxiliaries President Pat Nowlin spoke for the ladies with a reading of a short poem on the problems they were having in striving for more members. BILL KING, former NDP Labour Minister, discusses some political resolutions to the IWA Convention with Lyle Kristiansen, Minority Groups Relations officer who was re- cently appointed by the Regional officers to this new post.