Seen, l to r, are PNC members, including USW Wood Council chairperson Bob Matters, District 3 Director Steve Hunt, Assistant to the Director Carol Landry and staff representative Scott Lunny. Photos by Norman Garcia

BURNABY, BC – The Steelworkers’ Provincial Negotiating Committee (PNC) is hard at work to reach collective agreements with coastal forest industry employers before the June 15, 2007 expiry date. There’s only a month to go and committee spokesperson Steve Hunt says that negotiations are “running out of time.”

 

“So far we’ve done lots of work with FIR (Forest Industrial Relations) but there’s still way lots left to do,” says Hunt, the USW’s director for Western Canada. “However TimberWest, Interfor and Island Timberlands are still reluctant to move ahead with us in any marked way.”

 

On Monday the union met with Island Timberlands in Nanaimo. A scheduled meeting with TimberWest today was cancelled as the company claimed it wants the involvement of the BC Labour Relations Board. The union informed the company that their move was a needless delay and that the union was and is prepared to meet any time to negotiate a renewed collective bargaining agreement.

 

Steelworker Wood Council chairperson Bob Matters, who is also anchoring negotiations, says the union intends to bargain a two-year agreement in order to re-align expiry dates with five USW locals in the province’s northern and southern Interior regions.

 

“We intend to re-unite the union for contract expiry dates in 2009 and maintain industry-wide standards,” says Matters. 

Hunt says that wages, benefits and working standards in all parts of the province and other issues, like worker training and investment are important items for BC woodworkers.

During talks with FIR and other coastal employers, the union is determined to repair the damage done to hours of work provisions of the Coast Master Agreement. In 2004, government-appointed mediator Don Munroe gutted the IWA Canada contract of language that gave workers the right to refuse imposed shifts.

Says Matters: “Our members have to be treated with dignity and respect by this industry and we intend to assure that happens.”

 

Last night the union’s PNG reps, including Local 1-80 president Bill Routley, Local 1-85 president Tom Russell, Local 1-2171 president Darrel Wong, Local 1-363 president Rick Wangler and Local 1-3567 president Brian Harder met with rank and file members at the USW Local 1-85 Hall in Port Alberni. Tonight they will meet with Steelworker members at the Coast Bastion Hotel in Nanaimo at 7 pm. Members from all locals are invited to attend.

 

Last Thursday the PNC met with members at Local 1-3567’s hall in Langley.

 

“We’ve been asking our members to stay cool and collected,” says Brother Matters. “They need to stay informed, stay involved and stay together.”

 

Says Hunt: “Solidarity works. When our rank and file stick together, we will be able to put more and more pressure on employers.”

 

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