oY - ee « SEPTEMBER, 1971 THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER ONE DOLLAR AN HOUR INCREASE WON BY SWANSON LUMBER CREW Arne Christensen, President of Local 1-207, I.W.A., reports the signing of a new 2-year Agreement for I.W.A. mem- bers employed by Swanson Lumber Co. Ltd. at Chisholm and Sweetgrass Alberta. $1 an hour general increase in wages effective on the following dates: September 1, 1971........ 40¢c per hour April 1, 1972 ....... 30c per hour September 1, 1972...... 30c per hour creases the night-shift dif- Landing, The Agreement provides for The Agreement also in- ARNE CHRISTENSEN ferential to 10c per hour; improvement in the Vacation LOGGING CAMPS-1919 Editor’s Note: $ The following report on logging camp conditions is reprinted from the June 2, 1919 edition of The Camp Worker which was the official organ of the B.C. Loggers and Camp Workers Union. SHORT JABS ON CAMP CONDITIONS Yeatman’s Camp, Bold Point — New cook house, things up to date, anyone going out there will find a really nice place. Oxford Bay Timber Co., Wooten Bay — Conditions BAD. No ventilation. Boss says he wants three crews, one working, one going and one coming. Men quitting all time and are treated like dogs. Jordan River, near Victoria — Good sanitary conditions; electric lights, bath house and drying room. Board good, and camp houses fair. Camp 45 miles from Victoria and can be reached by stage. Judd Moore Camp, Frederick Arm — Five men quit on account of rotten conditions and filthy camps. Refuse to furnish cook and accommodation around cook house very bad. Boss opposed to union and trying to put over a nine- hour day. Camp 4, Whalen’s Pulp and Paper Co., Quatsino, B.C. — Men have had trouble getting cheques cashed. Many of them returned marked ‘‘No Funds.” Would not advise anyone to go there. Camp 5, Port Alice — Have a Scaler following Fallers and Buckers all the time and those who will not stand for it, or who do not scale up to requirements, have to go down. Beale & Sanford’s Camp, Ocean Falls — Conditions good. Beaver Creek, Jervis Inlet, B.C. — Conditions very good. Bath house. Everything clean. : Beale’s Camp, Ocean Falls, B.C. — Wages have ad- vanced 25 cents all around. Conditions in camp are good. Wilson Camp, Mount Olie — Camp conditions fair, bunkhouse clean. Lower Wilson’s Mount Olie — Bunkhouses clean, sanitary arrangements good. Robillard’s Camp, Shuswap Lake — This is a new camp and in good sanitary condition. All other camps in this district have been ordered to clean up and make things sanitary. G.T.P. DISTRICT Dome Mountain Lumber Company’s Camp, Dome Creek ~—- Health Act and Camp regulations not carried out. Some bunkhouses unfit for human habitation. Hogs allowed loose. We understand arrangements are being made for general clean-up. Will notify readers when this takes place. Cohn’s Camp — Bunks three tiers high. Otherwise sanitary conditions fair. Understand arrangements are being made to remedy this condition. We would ask any member or camp delegate preferred, to draw our attention to any mis-statement that may appear in this column. We get all the possible information from many sources. If any report is not true, let us know. But let us have the real truth. It is for your benefit. Camp 9, Cowichan Lake — Pretty good place to work. Two Ledgerwood skidders, one yarder, one swing, one swing and one roader, and not very high boll. The job is bucking. Other conditions none too good, but arranged for. 18 men in a bunk house, all poor. ery isolated. Gas boat brings news late. Conditions fairly with Pay to three weeks after five years of service paid at 61% percent of total earnings, and four weeks after 20 years at 814 percent of total earnings. The Company will pay 75 percent of the Medical Plan in the first year and 100 percent of the cost in the second year of the Agreement. The base labour rate as of September 1, 1972, will be $3.56 per hour. Christensen states that while this Agreement does not provide for parity with wages paid in the wood: industry in B.C. it does eliminate some of the discrepancies which have existed for many years. Swanson Lumber Co. Ltd. is owned by Coppers Corporation of Pittsburgh, U.S.A. FROM PAGE ONE “FALLERS" Lake division putting 400 other employees out of work. Union officials after fruitless meetings with the Company over the problem, finally ap- pealed to the WCB to change its interpretation of the Regula- tion. The Board after a special investigation of falling and bucking: fatalities, announced that the Regulation would stand. The stalemate continued until September 7 when Union officials were able to convince the Board to vary its in- terpretation of the Regulation for the Sproat Lake fallers. UNION SUGGESTS AIRCRAFT The International Associa- tion of Machinists and Aero- space Workers has asked the federal government to acquire a fleet of 25 CL215 water bomber aircraft to save Cana- dian forests, Canadian crops and Canadian jobs. The fleet would be available to the provinces for emergency services. _ The Association says that if such a fleet had been in existence this year it could have prevented millions of dollars loss from forest fires in B.C. and the Bertha worm in Saskatchewan’s rapeseed fields. And building the fleet would halt the tragic job loss at Cana- dair in Montreal where, the IAM reports, the work force has declined to 2,664 from nearly 6,000 at the beginning of the year. FROM PAGE ONE “HUDSON BAY CONTRACTS" negotiations for the Union were Regional 3rd Vice-President Stan Parker and Local 1-184 Business Agent Art Friske. Plant Committee members ably assisting in the Aspenite settlement were Plant Chair- ~ man Ray Ricard and Com- mittee members Jim Wizniak and Dale Henry. Aiding Parker and Friske in the Simpson negotiations were Plant Chairman Bob Carter and Vice-Chairman Ed. Jakuboski. a SPEED LIMIT SOUGHT Car manufacturers will limit the top-speed capability of their products to the highest legal speed-rate of any province of Canada if Barry Mather, M.P., Opposition traffic-safety spokesman, has his way. Mr. Mather (NDP Surrey- White Rock) has put this idea forward in a Question on the Order Paper of the House of Commons. It reads; ‘“‘is con- sideration being given to initiating consultation with the provinces aimed at setting the top-speed capability of motor vehicles at the highest fixed legal speed limit of any province?”’ The NDP MP points out that in the United States, the National Transportation Safety Board has recom- mended the end of mass- production of vehicles that can exceed legal speed limits. The highest existing U.S. limit is Kansas — 80 miles per hour. If the Board’s proposal becomes law, manufacturers will put an 80 mph top speed capability on their products. (The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, would set. the manufacturers’ top speed at 95 mph, except for police and emergency vehicles. ) ‘These proposals have been well received by the general public but naturally have drawn. the opposition of hot- rodders” Mather says. ‘‘They argue that a car needs a power reserve for safe passing .. . however, the reserve would still be there except for passing someone travelling at the legal speed limit.” One magazine, which depends heavily on automotive ads, claims tht speed control systems would add $25 to the cost of a car. That magazine asks, ‘‘Is a possible 4 per cent reduction in traffic fatalities worth $250,000,000 a year?” Aside from the inhumanity of such an attitude, Mather says, “what of the cost to millions of North Americans who have to buy far more horsepower than most of them will ever use... and the incalculable cost of the casualties from speeding vehicles? In Canada ap- proximately 100 persons are killed each week of each month of the year. At a top set speed capability of 70 mph, nine per cent of those casualties could be avoided.” ARTICLE IN ERROR We regret that in publishing the article on Prepaid Dental Plans in the August issue of the Lumber Worker an error was made. Under the section Plan ‘“A’’ — Basic Services both M.S.A. and C.U. & C. make payment at 100 percent, not 50 percent as reported. LOCAL 1-118 IWA MEMBER Darshan Singh Gill left, has AI SS sae reason to smile as he accepts $4,544.30 cheque from Local Ist Vice-President Roger Lewis as full settlement of his unjust dismissal from the Sooke Forest Products Ltd., Victoria. While Gill is now back on the job with all seniority rights it took the Local Union nearly three years to win the case after lengthy arbitration and a Supreme Court hearing. Local 1-118 officers wish to take this occasoin to congratulate Brother Gill for the determined stand he took on the mafter.