Steelworkers' program aims at immediate change in BC's forest industry

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/March2008/29/c8480.html

Attention News Editors:
Steelworkers' program aims at immediate change in BC's forest industry

NEW WESTMINSTER, BC, March 29 /CNW/ - The BC government can and should
take immediate steps to stop the bleeding in British Columbia's forest
industry, say leaders of the United Steelworkers (USW).

On Saturday, Steelworkers released a 10-point plan aimed at getting the
industry back on its feet.

"We need action right now," said USW Wood Council Chair Bob Matters.
"Forest-sector workers, our families and our communities cannot wait."

Matters noted that laid-off Steelworkers recently lobbied the BC
government for action on a crisis that has destroyed 10,000 jobs since
October. However, almost all of the government MLAs either denied there is a
crisis, blamed all the industry's problems on economic conditions, suggested
workers wait until the results of Premier Gordon Campbell's recently-appointed
Forest Sector Round Table, or said they have no answers.

"They seem not to have very many of their own ideas, so we're happy to
provide them with several," he said. "Steelworkers challenge them to adopt
them and bring in to legislation so we can start rebuilding the province's
most important industry."

Steelworkers' proposals include: measures to cut log exports and
encourage more wood manufacturing in BC; reductions in the quantity of usable
logs left to rot in BC's forests; inducements to purchase new logging and
sawmill equipment; programs for worker training and skills upgrading and
better enforcement of safety standards in an industry where more than 20
workers are killed on the job and more than 90 severely injured annually.


FULL story at link.