BY JACOB GAVIN
CAMPBELL RIVER, British Columbia - Some 1,500 pulp and paper strikers and their supporters rallied April 4 in this Vancouver Island town in support of a nine-month strike against Fletcher Challenge Canada (FCC).

The high-spirited solidarity rally for 2,400 workers at three British Columbia pulp and paper mills was joined by a protest march through the town of several hundred Hospital Employee Union members protesting government cutbacks. Locals of the two unions on strike at FCC, the Communications, Energy and Paper (CEP) worker's union and the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada (PPWC), sent contingents to the rally from around the province.

There were contingents from other unions as well, including the Canadian Auto Workers and the International Association of Machinists (IAM). The rally was organized by CEP locals 630 and 1123 from nearby Elk Falls.

Workers at the rally said that the event was an important morale boost for this long strike, which has no end in sight as negotiations are at a standstill. "This rally - solidarity - is the wave of the future. It's what we're going to need against what all companies are trying to do," said Dan Pankhurst, vice president of CEP local 630.

The main issue in the strike is the company's drive to introduce "flexibility" on job-classification and contracting out jobs in order to make the mills more "efficient" and "competitive." For workers, flexibility translates to a major blow to seniority rights, layoffs, and unsafe working conditions. Andy Berends, a machine operator of 16 years at one of the struck mills, gave the Militant his view of flexibility. Management "wants to tell you what to do and when to do it. It all boils down to a power struggle," he said.

The day before the rally, FCC ran a full-page ad in the local daily Campbell River Mirror attacking the CEP for "double standards" on the flexibility issue, claiming the "powerful" union has accepted flexible language with East Coast competitors. This was one of a series of ads recently run by the company in hopes of dividing the community and weakening support for the strike. The CEP answered one of these ads with a letter from 2nd vice president Keith McKay, which was distributed at the rally. The letter explains, among other things, that flexibility would result in job loss, unsafe practices, and contracting out.

The FCC ad also faults the unionists' struggle for the economic downturn in the B.C. economy. Thousands of jobs have been cut in recent months, particularly in forestry. "The CEP strike is preventing $1.7 billion dollars in revenue from flowing through our company into the B.C. economy in a normal year - revenue that supports the communities where we live and operate." With such rhetoric, the company has sought to exploit working people's fears of the downturn to pressure strikers into accepting concessions.

Many workers at the rally saw through such arguments. Through the course of the strike, pulp and paper workers explained, FCC has been inflexible in negotiations and the company has refused to budge on flexibility, which they view as a direct drive to break their union.

Union officials addressing the rally focused on the fact that FCC is a New Zealand company. Organizers called on participants to bring Canadian flags, and hundreds more were distributed at the event. Fraser McQuarrie, president of CEP local 630, stated in his address, "We don't want Malaysians, Indonesians, and others coming here to run our country. I don't want my children to grow up in a Third World country. I want to be in the best country in the world." This chauvinist perspective weakens working-class solidarity in the fight against Fletcher Challenge

The main aspect of the rally was the determination and solidarity of strikers and their supporters to stand firm in face of the company attack. Striker Bryan Knippshild explained, "If Fletcher wants to stay out a year, we'll stay out a year and a day."

As we go to press the contract mediator has put forward a proposal for negotiations.

Jacob Gavin is a member of the Young Socialists and Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees Local 178. Ned Dmytryshyn, a member of IAM Lodge 764, contributed to this article.  
 
 
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