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Pictured on the left are members of the USW Provincial Negotiating Committee at a meeting this past week with FIR representatives. Photos by Norman Garcia

USW Local 1-80 president Bill Routley reviews bargaining bulletin sent to union members all over the coast.

BURNABY, BC – With current collective agreement expiry dates less than 7 weeks away, contract talks between the union and various BC Coastal forest industry employers are starting to pick up. The Steelworkers’ BC Provincial Negotiating Committee, sees some signs that employers may want to negotiate collective agreements and avoid potential labour disputes.

“At this point it is much too early to predict how talks may evolve,” says USW District 3 Director Steve Hunt, who is the negotiating committee’s chief spokesperson. “From the time we exchanged proposals with FIR (Forest Industrial Relations) and others in March and April to now, it has been too slow for our liking, but things are starting to move a bit.”

Steelworkers-Wood Council chair Bob Matters says the union remains “cautiously optimistic” that talks may continue to move forward in a timely manner.
 
“I would say we have made some limited but substantive progress on some non-monetary issues with some employers but there is a lot of work to do,” says Matters, also a committee spokesperson. “Our committee and our membership is solid and we are very adaptive to the circumstances we may face, on a day to day basis.”

At the bargaining table are the USW’s five coastal local unions, District 3’s Assistant to the Director Carol Landry, and staff representative Scott Lunny. They are usually joined by Charles Campbell who heads the research department at the union’s Canadian National Office.

The local presidents are Bill Routley (Duncan Local 1-80), Tom Russell (Port Alberni Local 1-85), Darrel Wong (Vancouver/Loggers’ Local 1-2171), Rick Wangler (Courtenay Local 1-363) and Brian Harder (Fraser Valley Local 1-3567).

The union is negotiating simultaneously with FIR, International Forest Products, TimberWest and Island Timberlands.

FIR, which has been in existence since 1949, is no longer the formidable employers’ association it once was. After the last set of negotiations, the “Three Amigos” – Weyerhaeuser, TimberWest and Interfor, bolted from FIR to go it alone. Weyerhaeuser sold out its coastal interests since then.

Today FIR represents some 5,000 Steelworkers members in five local unions, scattered among 31 employers – mostly logging contractors and mills.

FIR’s largest player is Western Forest Products, which arose out of a merger between the assets of the bankrupt Doman-Western empire and the milling and public lands assets of Cascadia Forest Products (formerly Weyerhaeuser Canada’s BC coastal assets which were hived off with Weyco’s public lands to form Cascadia Forest Products).

“Western is the big guy at the table and most of the other members of FIR listen closely to what it says,” notes Brother Hunt. “So it’s a relationship of unequal partners.”

Negotiations with FIR are scheduled to continue on April 30 and May 1. Then they are set for May 7-11, May 16-18 and May 22-24.

On April 24 the union met for most of the day with International Forest Products, once a major coastal player, which has just three mills under its company name: Hammond Cedar in Maple Ridge; Acorn Division on the Fraser-Surrey docks; and the Queensborough mill in New Westminster.  However, Interfor remains a major holder of forest licenses on the Coast of BC.

 “Interfor wants a sawmill only agreement and we said no,” says Hunt. “The woodlands language must stand even thought they have contracted everything out.  They still employ our members in contract operations.”

“Times change and business opportunities change so we intend to see that language remain. Interfor could sell its interests on the coast at any time in the future and we need contract language with more improvements to cover our membership,” adds Brother Hunt.

Interfor has also demanded numerous concessions including to vacation, seniority, tech change, severance pay, among other portions of the agreement.

On May 2 the union is set to meet with TimberWest, in an opening meeting.

“TimberWest is one of the infamous Three Amigos who is now divesting itself of  woodlands assets,” says Hunt. “They over cut their private lands at unsustainable rates and export logs out of Canada.”

Another company that is over cutting on its private lands and is a main culprit in the export of logs and jobs is Island Timberlands, which arose out of the sale of Weyerhaeuser’s private lands, mainly on Vancouver Island.

Proposals where first exchanged with that company on May 14.

In all sets of contract talks, including companies that “me too” the master agreement, the union is negotiating for over 8,000 workers.

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