By Kimball Cariou

AS the rains of winter loom, thousands of British Columbia forestry workers are now in their third month on the picket lines, battling for decent working conditions under difficult circumstances. Theirs is not just a confrontation with profit-hungry corporations, but with an industry shaped for a century by the powerful forces of big capital and governments. The stakes are enormous: the very existence of unions in the west coast forestry sector.

     In fact, this struggle has broadened into a bigger fight for the future of coastal communities. A Sept. 16 rally at the Legislature in Victoria was typical, involving the Steelworkers-IWA Council and other unions, as well as environmentalists (the Sierra Club and Western Canada Wilderness Committee) and community coalitions - the Youbou Timberless Society and the Save Our Valley Alliance. Despite their mutual hostility, the rally was also backed by the NDP and the Green Party.

     While forestry is no longer the dominant industry on the west coast, it remains one of the lynchpins of the BC economy. But in a trend that saw the axe replaced by handsaws, chainsaws, and now mechanical harvesters, logging has become ever more capital intensive, eliminating thousands of jobs.

     The concentration of capital in the industry has also meant the closure of many pulp and paper mills, devastating communities along the coast. For example, the Catalyst Paper mill at Port Alberni once employed over 1,500 workers. On August 30, Catalyst shut down one of its last two paper machines, laying off 185 workers. The company's third machine was shipped to India last year for re-assembly, to operate as another low-cost competitor.

     Twenty years ago, the last major strike by over 25,000 workers lasted more than four months; today 7,000 are on strike against 34 companies, mostly members of Forest Industrial Relations. Forestry now accounts for some five percent of the provincial workforce.

     Meanwhile, annual exports of raw logs have skyrocketed, from tens of thousands of cubic metres during the '90s to 5 million last year, taking thousands of processing jobs offshore. One of the biggest employers involved in the current strike, Western Forest Products, is also the largest log exporter in the province. Attempts to blockade truckloads of raw logs had some success, but now the companies have switched to loading logs onto barges, which are much more difficult to block.

     The Sept. 16 rally in Victoria was united around this issue, demanding a ban on log exports to help save local jobs and to ensure sustainability in the forests.

     But the strike has been driven by another facet of corporate greed. Imposed in an arbitrated settlement three years ago, the last contract gives the companies "flexible shift language" - unfettered control over shifts - making family life almost impossible for workers who cannot predict their schedules. This has generated solid unity on the picket lines, despite predictions that the strike which began on July 21 may last into 2008. Everywhere along the coast, the workers are desperate to regain some power over their lives.

     Working time is also seen by the Steelworkers as part of a crucial safety battle. At a Sept. 5 rally in the northern Vancouver Island town of Port McNeill, Darryl Wong, president of United Steelworkers local 2171, said "the deaths have to stop," noting the 53 deaths in the industry in BC since December 2005. "The way to do that is to reduce scheduled hours."

     Wong particularly slammed Western Forest Products for its role in the strike. "They keep saying they're the good guys, but the reality of it is your employer is just as bad as every other employer on the Coast, if not worse."

     Other key issues include contracting-out and the union's demand for severance pay during partial mill closures.

     But the roots of this strike go even deeper, back to the changes to the industry introduced by provincial governments over many years.

     Some industry analysts note that coastal towns dependent on forestry are paying the price for the NDP decision fifteen years ago to disconnect corporate access to timber from requirements to invest capital in resource manufacturing plants. As one observer wrote, "this resulted in a neocon goldrush of resource plunder essentially unfettered with domestic manufacturing requirements."

     From this perspective, the Harcourt NDP government seemed to believe that freeing industrial capital from plant obligations would result in capital investment rather than capital flight. Instead, after extracting massive profits, corporations still control the resource but have no obligations to the forest, the communities or the environment. The BC Liberals under Gordon Campbell have accelerated this process since 2001. Campbell's government has allowed forest companies with private lands to remove those lands from tree farm licences and from provincial regulations on sustainable harvesting and log exports.

     Even more than in the past, small towns and cities are at the mercy of corporate decisions and the boom and bust nature of the lumber industry. At a time when US housing starts are down and the rising Canadian dollar makes exports more expensive, the results are catastrophic. Many of the striking forestry workers are already seeking jobs elsewhere, such as the oil and gas sector. That brings in the income they need to survive, but their paycheques are largely spent elsewhere, leaving hometowns suffering from lower consumer spending and a declining tax base.

     One response of small town politicians is predictable: cut taxes to lure industry back. Those hopes are unrealistic as long as huge log exports continue to deprive mills and plants of adequate raw materials. And that trend will undoubtedly hit the forest economy even harder over the long run, thanks to the pine beetle destruction of B.C.'s interior forests.

     Industry spokespersons claim that government policy shifts were necessary to "free companies to meet the challenges of global market forces." As Catalyst Paper's director of human resources recently said about the company's commitment to Port Alberni: "Nobody can predict the future. We can try to make a go of it and deal with the changing marketplace as it evolves."

     Meanwhile, Catalyst is demanding tax cuts from the city, and wants to open discussions with CEP Local 592 over "workplace flexibility" - the same issue which has thousands of forestry workers on the picket line.

     Adding to the pressures from capital, a new "global cost-benchmarking report" rates British Columbia's coastal sawmilling sector as among the least efficient in the world.

     "If you are not going to be competitive, you will not attract capital (and) mills will close," says Russ Taylor, president of the International Wood Markets Group. Praising sawmills in South Africa, Chile and Northwest Russia as top performers, Taylor argues that the "labour climate" must change to achieve lower costs, i.e. lower wages.

     This reveals the essence of the capitalist "solution" to the long-term crisis in the industry: transform B.C.'s forests into fibre-export plantations, shut down forestry towns, and cut wages to the same level as in Russia, Chile and South Africa. To achieve this agenda, the unions which are the number one line of defence for forestry workers and their communities must be crushed.

     A few voices call for retreat, along the lines of "Christian Labour Association of Canada" sellout deals. But even if the Steelworkers-IWA are compelled to surrender, the corporations will not be satisfied until the entire industry is non-union. The ultimate cost in workers' lives and the destruction of communities and forests would be enormous. That's the real issue in this strike, and that's why solidarity is crucial.