OCTOBER, 1971

THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

WAGE COSTLY

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FOR INTERNATIONAL OFFICERS

President Nixon’s wage freeze is costing the IWA In- ternational officers fifty dollars a week each. _ Delegates to the International Convention voted to increase the salaries of the International officers by $50.00 a

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week but under Nixon’s wage freeze edict, they can’t collect

TIME CLOCKS PHASED OUT

Time clocks in all MacMillan Bloedel’s B.C. operations have been removed following a sug- gestion made by IWA Regional President Jack Moore, at the first top-level meeting of the Company and Union.

Over the past year Regional and Local Union officers with MacMillan Bloedel operations in their Locals, have held a number of informal meetings with top Company officials as recommended by Mr. Justice Nathan Nemetz.

Nemetz made the recom- mendation in his report to settle last year’s coast contract dispute in the industry. He suggested that such meetings, held in an informal at- mosphere, would aid in solving outstanding industry problems and create a better foundation of trust.

Moore, in presenting his proposal, stated that the use of time clocks was a degrading and unecessary control, ap- plied only to hourly employees. Their removal, he said, would create a better working climate which would aid in improving employer-employee relations.

Company: officials agreed to review the proposal. In Sep- tember they advised the Union that all time clocks would be

removed from the plants under ~

IWA certification by October 1.

The IWA will now press the other forest industry com- panies to follow the example set by MacMillan Bloedel. Union officials point out that if M.B., with its thousands of employees can operate without the use of time clocks, so can the others.

LOCAL 1-80 PUBLISHES FINE CENTENNIAL ISSUE

Local 1-80 IWA has just published a highly attractive special centennial issue of its monthly ‘Bulletin’? which covers the activities of the Local Union over the past 37 years,

The Bulletin’s Editor Ken McEwan and Local officers have done a fine job of keeping the stories and articles in- formative and the generous

THIS 1S THE WORLD OF CARE:

Providing nutritious food for school children and pre-schoolers, health ser- viees for the sick and handicapped, facilities and equipment for basic schooling and technical training, tools

sprinkling of old logging and sawmill pictures gives added attraction.

Included in the issue are the experiences of all the Local 1- 80 presidents during the time they served in office, plus that of Financial Secretary Ed Linder, who has served in office longer than any other IWA officer in North America.

and equipment for community endeav- ours. Your support of CARE makes such things possible for millions of individ- uals around the world.

One dollar per person each year would do it!

CARE CANADA 63 Sparks OTTAWA (Ont ) K1P SAG

Kansas City.

BROAD CONTRACT

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national Convention held September 20-24, in

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REGION 1 DELEGATES in session at the Inter’

GOALS HIGHLIGHT

UNION'S BARGAINING CONFERENCE

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Broad contract goals and active participation by the Inter- national Union ‘‘to coordinate bargaining activities between Regional Councils and their appropriate local unions’ won endorsement here from dele- gates at the 27th IWA Inter- national Constitutional Con- vention.

The action was taken at the wage and contract policy conference held during the convention in line with a resolution approved at the IWA convention in 1969.

Keynote talks to open the bargaining conference were made by International Second Vice President H. Landon Ladd and Harvey R. Nelson, former president of Western States Regional Council No. 3, who drafted the policy resolutions for the meeting.

Ladd emphasized the need for coordinated bargaining to deal effectively with giant corporations which control the forest products industry in both the United States and Canada, along with changing technology which is having marked effects on jobs of IWA members.

“New technology makes possible the easy and economical use of the vast cheap small log timberlands in the South, where wages and fringe benefits are about half that paid in the Northwest and British Columbia,’’ Ladd said.

“Weyerhaeuser, Georgia- Pacific, Evans Products, U.S. Plywood and MacMillan Bloedel are spending literally hundreds of millions of dollars on highly-automated, com- puterized, integrated facilities in the organized South.

“By 1975, the IWA bargaining power in B.C. and the Pacific Northwest could be in jeopardy,” Ladd warned. “The effects will be dramatic if we cannot find a way to upgrade the wages in the South — through International co- ordinated bargaining.

“We can be proud of the IWA and its achievements, but

changes in the industry demand new policies of uniting ourselves in both nations behind a broad program of co- operation, using available union resources to coordinate our bargaining activities and our educational programs.

“The membership expects it,’ Ladd added, ‘‘and the great corporations are ner- vously watching from their towers. They know that ef- fective coordinated bargaining means more power and wages for the worker, and less for their corporate elite.”’

In his talk, Nelson urged the delegates to ‘‘band ourselves together at the bargaining table now, not wait until we must do so out of desperation.”

Nelson reviewed collective bargaining programs of the IWA from the 1930s up to the present in the Pacific North- west, emphasizing the major improvements in wages and fringe benefits won in recent negotiations by close co- operation between Regional Council No. 3 and the Lumber and Sawmill Workers.

“Many employers in our industry are extremely con- cerned whether the IWA will pull itself together in co- ordinated bargaining,’’ Nelson said.

He pointed out that the policy and program in negotiations will be made by the respective Regional Councils under constitutional authority, but “the International Union should have the authority to set goals and assist the Regions to make the greatest possible gains for the membership.”

The main policy resolution approved by delegates directs the international officers, “‘in accordance with this Union’s contract goals, to actively participate in the bargaining program and to coordinate bargaining activities between Regional Councils and their appropriate local unions, in- cluding multi-company cor- porations and conglomerates

“The International officers will call regular meetings in cooperation with the respec- tive Regional Councils to consider matters relating to multi-union operations and to establish such other areas of communication aS may become advisable to bring about better coordination and cooperation in bargaining objectives.

“The International Union, in’ cooperation with the Regional Councils, will provide to the utmost extent possible, pro- grams for training staffs, local union leaders and bargaining committeemen in the bargain- ing skills necessary to achieve the contract goals of this Union.

‘““All available resources possible of the International Union will be allocated for this purpose, including research, education and finances .. .”

Contract goals established by delegate votes include pay for vacations, complete em- ployer-paid health coverage, improved pensions that include a_ cost-of-living escalator clause, payment by the em- ployer for pre-negotiation research materials on issues such as pensions and job evaluation, elimination of all exceptions to normal hours-of- labor provisions in IWA con- tracts.

DELEGATES REJECT POLICY

IWA International Conven- tion delegates indicated their view of President Nixon’s wage freeze policy by ap- proving a resolution which called for emphatic rejection of wage freezes now or in the future.

In condemning Nixon’s economic policies, the conven- tion demanded that the United States government recognize its obligations to all sections of the economic community of North America and the world.