Tale of Two Strikes
Forestry strike spotlights 'suffering' side of BC.
B.C. forestry yields fewer jobs than elsewhere. Chart courtesy of David Suzuki Foundation.
Two strikes, two British Columbias.
In Vancouver, about 6,000 civic workers are off the job amidst a red-hot economy and the promise of greater riches from the 2010 Olympics.
Meanwhile, along the West Coast, about 7,000 forest workers are on strike in towns that have spent years grappling with job losses and economic change.
The Vancouver civic workers' strike is a reminder that life in a boomtown can have its downside, as workers complain of trying to keep up with soaring housing costs.
The coastal forestry strike is a reminder that not all of B.C. is booming -- a fact that those in boomtown tend to forget.
The civic workers support the new economy -- one based on knowledge and technology, services and construction.
The forest workers are old economy -- part of an industry that used to dominate the B.C. economy but has lately been dwindling in terms of employment and economic impact.
Falling trees
Since 2004, when the most recent settlement was imposed on the coastal forest industry, 26 forest companies have gone out of business and about 5,000 loggers and sawmill workers have lost their jobs.
And that's just the latest decline in a long-term process. Employment in the coastal forest industry has dropped from more than 30,000 in the early 1980s to less than a third of that today.
The key issues in the forest dispute include contracting-out language, severance pay for partial mill closures, hours of work and shift scheduling. The union claims the companies are creating safety hazards by forcing workers to work longer hours and more days in a row.
The companies argue that they need more flexibility to survive, given increased competition and slumping markets.
As the industry has declined, the forest-dependent towns that dot Vancouver Island have diversified. Enterprises such as aquaculture and, especially, tourism have filled some of the gaps left by forest layoffs.
'Changed so much'
Twenty years ago, a coastal forest strike would bring headlines screaming Forest Strike Cripples Economy. Today, mill-town small businesspeople like Donna Streeter aren't sure just how much impact the strike will have.
Streeter is the general manager of Ricky's All Day Grill in Ladysmith. Two of her employees have spouses who work in the forest industry.
"Given that we're in the middle of summer and we have a fair bit of tourism trade, I'm not too sure how much it's going to affect us," she said.
If the strike lasts into the fall, after the tourists have gone home, then it will start to bite, she said.
In Port Alberni, Mayor Ken McRae remembers when the International Woodworkers of America had 5,000 members in his town alone. Today, the IWA has been merged into the United Steelworkers union. Contracting out means that many of the people working in the bush today don't belong to any union and aren't part of the strike.
"It's changed so much.... Now, especially in logging, there's a lot more non-union contractors. So they're all working," said McRae.
McRae was a negotiator for the Canadian Paperworkers' Union for a decade and president of the Port Alberni and District Labour Council for five years.
"So I know a lot about strikes."
At one time, he recalls, civic workers used to ask for the same wages as forest workers.
McRae laughs. "They used to strive for that in their contracts. Parity with the forest industry -- you don't hear that any more.
"It's the other way around, eh?"
'Question of survival'
Dave Hobden, an economist with Credit Union Central of B.C., says the trend is clear: "Forestry is not as important a part of the economy as it used to be overall, especially on Vancouver Island. It's a shrinking, sunset industry."
But that doesn't mean that an extended forest strike won't have an impact on coastal towns.
"It is true that they're more diverse, but some areas like Port Hardy, Alberni, Campbell River, Lake Cowichan, Duncan to some extent, even Nanaimo, Ladysmith, they still have a fairly high dependency on forestry income.
"In those areas it could cost them anywhere from 10 to 30 per cent of the income that's flowing in those economies."
Prices for forest products are low right now because of the slump in the U.S. housing market, he said.
"It's not a good time to be going on strike, there's no doubt about that."
If the strike goes on for several months, then the impact on Vancouver Island's economy will be significant, Hobden said.
"If it goes that long and longer, then it does become a question of survival for a lot of businesses."
While there will be political pressure to end the dispute, that pressure will be confined to the Island, he said.
Province interceded last time
The last coast forest shutdown, in 2003, ended after the provincial government stepped in. The government appointed arbitrator and mediator Don Munroe to work out a settlement that would reduce costs and bring stability to the industry.
The Munroe report led to "all sorts of changes in employment practices and contracting out," but it hasn't brought stability to the industry, said Simon Fraser University public policy professor Doug McArthur.
"At one time, until the mid to late '90s, there really was a kind of sense of collaboration between the union and the industry," said McArthur, a former senior civil servant with the B.C. government.
"They kind of served each other's interests. They made a kind of compact in the 1980s that they would go for an efficient, technology-based industry."
Some workers would lose their jobs, but those who remained would have both job security and high wages, he said.
"In the last six or seven years there has been just a really dramatic change where the industry has decided that the way to approach its cost challenges is to take it out of the wage bill," said McArthur.
The Munroe report, new tenure arrangements and market-based stumpage arrangements all helped to create a situation that eroded the old union-management understanding, McArthur said.
"There's no longer any kind of partnership in how they work together in the industry."
BC's 'core economy'
McArthur cited a number of long-term factors behind the current situation. Costs have increased because most of the easiest-to-reach stands of forest have been logged off. As well, employers went for years without investing in technology that would have made the industry more efficient and productive.
The softwood lumber export tax also added substantial costs.
The forest dispute, McArthur said, offers a sharp contrast to the civic workers' strike.
"There are two British Columbias, there's just no question about it. There's the Lower Mainland, the Fraser Valley, the Okanagan and the lower Island -- that's one British Columbia.
"And then there's most of the rest of British Columbia."
The resource-dependent northeast is enjoying an energy boom, but "the rest of B.C. is really suffering and workers are suffering and communities are suffering," McArthur said.
"There is a real economic crisis in these communities.... And I don't think the vast majority of people in the Lower Mainland, the Fraser Valley, the Okanagan, the lower Island have any idea what's going on.
"You have two different economies, one doing very well, and the other doing very badly, but you have a separation in terms of sympathies or understandings."
And, although the forest industry has declined over the years, it's still part of what McArthur describes as B.C.'s "core economy."
If energy prices drop and the construction boom dies after the Olympics, the province will be back to relying on the forest industry.
"So if it's not doing well, it will pull down the economy."
Related Tyee stories:
- BC's Crazy Timber Economics (series)
- Sawing off Our Future
BC's wide open timber industry is killing jobs, and people. - Strike Is All About the Olympics
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Lefty
4 years ago
Gordoccio & Co have the answer
He will arrange for several thousand replacement contract workers from the far east. That way the poor suffering corporates will have the flexability to survive, and of course the displaced BC'ers won't surrive unless they move.
Capitalism sucks.
poindexter
4 years ago
The net result will be when
The net result will be when the strike ends, all that will be left is a bunch of old guys resistant to change, while all the young guys will have gone to Alberta or any other industry in BC where the pay is better and there's no shortage of work.
The union has to accept that this industry is in serious decline for a number of reasons, and job security and working a happy Monday - Friday shift isn't part of it.
James Burns
4 years ago
The Core of BC's economy
Isn't BC Bud the core of our economy?
Jeffrey J.
4 years ago
More Democracy At Work
Excellent article which underscores how industry has failed to invest in their own business. Now they want workers to subsidize their profits. Yet no mention of this obvious fact in CanWestGlobal media or elsewhere. So people will be repeatedly told its the workers fault. Collective bargaining is a democratic freedom, as is the right to strike. Thanks Tyee for the coverage. Keep it up.
Grumpy
4 years ago
Gordo's give away
As my father, grandfather, great grandfather and three more previous great-grands, who worked in the forestry/logging industry in north America, I can say our real problems happened when the industry started listening to accountants and nor professional foresters.
When forestry accounting trick to precedent over sound forestry practices, the industry slid into obscurity. Then Harper and Campbell sold out soft wood to the USA (who are the really working for?), it heralded the collapse of the industry.
The shallow, weak kneed politicians, instead of standing up to the Uncle Sam, showed their 'yellow streak' to the chaps down south. And we all know, the USA hates cowards.
Why not a 100% export tax on energy, that would wake up the USA. But no, the industry is dying a slow death, with barely a whimper. Well done Gordo, well done Harpo.
Skywalker
4 years ago
Lefty is right Poindexter off base.
There was a time when BC tried to get more jobs for the wood cut back in the 80's and we would compare ourselves to Scandinavian counties. In the last half dozen years the government has peddled the notion that this "new reality" is something we can't resist and we have to export our jobs to places where the mill the logs cheaper. All in the interests of free trade and globalization. It is a disgrace. How could anyone be so short-sighted.
Most of Canada's resources are going the same way. It is almost treasonous what is happening and sad that people still accept it all as a "new reality". The idiocy is the new reality nothing else.
poindexter
4 years ago
It is a different industry
It is a different industry now than it was in the '80's. In the '80's and early '90's the BC coast was logging primarily old growth high grade cedar and fir, which brought a premium price in Asia etc.
Since the mid '90's the Asian economy slid, and since the BC coast industry was almost completely dependant on it, it suffered. Add to that the fact old growth high grade is diminishing and what little is left is inaccessiible and expensive to log. The coastal industry is now producing more second growth and lower grade old growth than it ever has before, at a higher cost than anywhere else in the world. Why buy it from us when you can buy it from anywhere else cheaper?
There are a number of reasons why we're in the state we are, from poor management practices to taking the gravy train of the '80's for granted. And it's both the unions and companies faults. Trying to put blame on Harper or Campbell doesn't help the industry or guys in it.
Ideas on how to make the industry survive in a global economy where everyone else is selling and producing our product cheaper is what we need. I don't see a lot of people looking at the future - they're more concerned with who they can blame for where we are now.
Skywalker
4 years ago
Who was it that said..
if we ignore history we are destined to repeat it. You simply can not solve a problem unless you look at the cause. That involves identifying the culprits. In the last six years I have seen the export of logs triple as mills shut down for lack of wood. Surely that is not a coincidence. I get tired of this notion that we "accept new challenges", "face the new reality", "be competitive in the global marketplace" and all those buzz words that come from the Chamber of Commerce types wanting to make a quick buck, never once looking at the cause and what can be done about it.
"Where everyone is selling cheaper" yeah right, like China until your pets are poisoned and your food supply tainted with pesticide all because some corporate CEO decided it was cheaper to buy goods from some third world country without health standards. You can blame most of the right-wing leaders for leading us down that road.
Give me a little isolationism or nationalism or protectionism if that is the choice even if I have to pay a little more for quality Canadian made goods. I'll live longer and be healthier.
poindexter
4 years ago
That makes total sense!
So I guess the answer then is to have the gov't create legislation that requires the companies to mill all lumber and manufacture value added products in BC, legislate a minimum wage of $25 - $30 an hour for any jobs related to the industry, ban any wood furniture imports, and we'll have a completely sustainable, nationalized, made in Canada solution! Who needs to be globally competitive? We can just market every single product we make in BC and Canada to ourselves! It makes complete sense!!
Of course! I mean, what do those Chamber of Commerce and CEO guys know about business anyways?
Chris H
4 years ago
Global Market
When all the forestry companies are owned by Americans, why would they upgrade and make capital investments in our sawmills? They can simply ship whole logs down to Washington State. We used to have rules that trees cut down in area had to be processed locally. The BC Liberals took all that away. This end result, therefore, was inevitable.
The only question now is when are people in the resource communities going to figure out that they aren't receiving much benefit from their forests being cut down and shipped South. When are they going to stand up and say, "Forget it! If we aren't benefitting then lets get those American companies off our PUBLIC land. We'd rather have our forests remain intact then being sawed up in some mill over the border."
apathysux
4 years ago
That's right...
...the government (provincial and federal)should re-implement regulations that require Canadian logs to be value-added in CANADA.
The softwood lumber agreement levies duties, tariffs and taxes on everything EXCEPT raw logs!! How stupid is that?? Oh yeah, its far better to sell our forest resources raw and have the US manufacture and market the value added products themselves and then tax and tariff the products that ARE actually produced in Canada so that they are priced so far out of range there is little market for them. Oh yeah, makes perfect sense.
I don't understand why Canada continues to think that the US is the only viable market for lumber...
Skywalker
4 years ago
Getting close Poindexter!
"So I guess the answer then is to have the gov't create legislation that requires the companies to mill all lumber and manufacture value added products in BC,"
Why not, other countries do exactly that. Wages are negotiated not legislated and they take into account the marketplace. Don't forget that when no Canadian has a decent paying job because now they are working for Chinese level wages or the minimum wage in the U.S. who is going be able to afford to to buy from those "smart" Chamber of Commerce types
And who said anything about nationalizing the industry. If the trees are owned by the people, why can they not set the rules for their use and exclude raw log exports.
"We can just market every single product we make in BC and Canada to ourselves!" Yes as mucvh as we can that is self -sufficiency and it makes very good sense. It might even reduce the price of gasoline and power and encourage industry to set up hear rather than in the U.S.
"It makes complete sense!!" You got that right.
"Of course! I mean, what do those Chamber of Commerce and CEO guys know about business anyways?" The know a lot about profits but I submit they don't know dick about what is good for a country. What's good for General Bullmoose is not necessarily good for the country.
Romeogolf
4 years ago
Corporate Navel Gazing
"I mean, what do those Chamber of Commerce and CEO guys know about business anyways?"
A helluva lot less than their MBA titles suggest. They are so fixated on the short-term stock price that they can't seem to recognize how they are undermining the sustainability of their businesses. The worship of perpetual growth is the Achilles heal at the heart of this.
Forestry is an industry that is notorious for over-exploitation, along with the side effects of destroying fertile land and fish stocks from soil erosion. There are so many examples around the world that you don't have to go far historically or geographically to learn lessons. Read Jared Diamond's "Collapse" for some excellent analysis, especially the case of Japan.
A transnational company has no loyalty to any one country. It is solely in business to make a profit. If it is more profitable to engage in illegal activity, even after getting caught, it will do so if it can still survive.
Most of the value of a final wood product is added after the tree is cut. When we export raw logs, we export the greater proportion of revenue that can be gotten from a tree. This doesn't matter to a corporation if they own the entire means of production. They maximize their profit because they can utilize the cheapest skilled labour possible.
In this scenario, it is inevitable that people are going to feel an increasing need to assert sovereignty over their resources. Again, there are many examples of this. The big question is whether or not it results in war.
Chris H
4 years ago
Chamber of Conference Guys
"I mean, what do those Chamber of Commerce and CEO guys know about business anyways?"
They know enough to NOT invest in BC sawmills when they can take raw logs closer to their market. They know how to make their stock more valuable and ultimately make their salaries larger. They don't have to worry about the people who live in the communities that they get their resources from. It is not in their mandate to be concerned with that environment.
RickW
4 years ago
poindexter
True enough! And every reason why logs or dimensional lumber shouldn't be exported at all!
RickW
4 years ago
romeogolf
You mean, they don't much CARE about the sustainability of their businesses - not when they can walk off with enough largesse the average working man can retire on (and then some).
Fish-counter
4 years ago
No sympathy for either side
I have absolutely no sympathy for either side when it comes to strikes. Both parties are equally culpable when an industry is shut down due to labour unrest. The employer is often myopic and greedy and so are the unions involved.
This farce of going on strike every year is just that, a farce. It is an attention-getting device to hold the public and the provincial economy to ransom. The sawmill workers are on the top of the heap at $44.00 per hour. The municipal workers are not doing so badly either. A good stiff jail term for every striker would put some starch in their collars, and the offending employers should be in the same cell, with no food or water. Then they would see that they were born with the same pot to pee in, and get off their high horses and get back to work.
There are folks who would gladly work for half the wages some of these dudes are earning, so let the market forces rule. If the sawmill workers want more money, let them find employement elsehwere. If the municipal workers want more money, let them work in the sawmills. It makes sense to me.
This crap makes me sick of living in British Columbia. It reminds me that no matter how much you have, if it is not enough, more won't help. It is time Gordon Campbell put a bit of stick about and broke a few legs while he is at it. I can't wait to hear the bones crack.
Romeogolf
4 years ago
No sympathy for either side?
"It is time Gordon Campbell put a bit of stick about and broke a few legs while he is at it. I can't wait to hear the bones crack."
Campbell is not going to do anything about industry as he is an agent of industry. What you are suggesting, Fish-counter, is one-sided.
And if you think union workers are overpaid, what about business executives?
If you want to profess even-handedness or objectivity, you'll have to do better.
Jay Currie
4 years ago
Decline and Rebirth
If an industry finds it more profitable to ship raw logs out than to cut lumber it tells us something important about the nature of the costs of production in that industry.
Now, we could make shipping raw logs illegal. Just as we could make shipping grain rather than bread illegal; but that would be to shoot ourselves in both feet at once.
A more intelligent approach would be to seek to a) create a brand for BC lumber, b) counteract the horrendous slagging the environmentalists have dropped on the industry, c)look for wood products which we can actually make at a profit.
a and b are things the government can and should do, c is about entrepreneural energy.
A chap I used to get rides from up Galiano was a retired professor of forestry and he pointed out that the non-harvest economics of the forest were more than a little interesting. Sure there is eco-tourism; but there is also a multi million dollar a year mushroom business and a number of other activities which require the forest but don't actually cut it.
Skywalker
4 years ago
Oh Jay!
"If an industry finds it more profitable to ship raw logs out than to cut lumber it tells us something important about the nature of the costs of production in that industry."
The cost of production include cost of labour any typically you suggest that labour work for less just so that the companies can compete. You never make any suggestion as to What "compete" means. Does that mean that profits have to double or triple? Are you saying that they can't make any profit paying a decent wage? And maybe if they can't pay a decent wage when they are in the business they should get out of it.
"Now, we could make shipping raw logs illegal. Just as we could make shipping grain rather than bread illegal;"
Please, please, please. That is a silly comparison. Bread spoils in trasit, lumber does not.
"but that would be to shoot ourselves in both feet at once."
Who is the "we" . If we export raw logs we are shooting the worker and not just in the foot, just to protect profit margins for the forest companies. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.