Forest Management Certification Assessment Report for - Rainforest ...

FSC PrincipleP4: CommunityRelations &Workers’ RightsComments from InterestedParties• Tembec’s largest logging contractor,Prairie Holdings Inc. pays lowerwages and does not provide benefitsbecause most of his workers arefamily members and are not paidconsistent with the EmploymentStandards Act. This contractor is thusable to log for lower rates and nowall contractors are expected to workat these rates which isn’t fair.• Intimidation tactics are being usedduring rate and working areanegotiations with loggingcontractors.Assessment Team Response• The assessment team found that mostof the workers for Prairie Holdingswho are assigned to Tembec contractsare not family members, and whilePrairie Holdings wages and benefits areslightly lower than the industryaverage, this is not a concern for theemployees who were interviewed. Wealso found that wages are paidconsistent with the requirements of theEmployment Standards Act and therehad not been any employmentstandards grievances. Tembec’slogging rates are based on a matrixwhich reflects the 2003 bid proposalprocess, where five contracts wereawarded to four logging contractors.These rates are then adjusted based oncutblock conditions and negotiationswith contractors. There are noindicators in the BC Standard thatpermit the assessment team to assessthe ‘fairness’ of these negotiations.• The BC standard addresses protectionof forest workers from discriminationor harassment. The team did not findany evidence of intimidation of forestworkers during the assessment, butacknowledges that very toughnegotiations occur between contractorsand Tembec about the rates paid to thelogging contractors and about the areaswhere they operate. The definition offorest workers extends to theemployees of the licensee andemployees of the contractors - not thelogging contractors (who are limitedcompanies) themselves. Business tobusiness negotiations with the loggingcontractors do not involve workers andare outside the scope of the FSCstandard. Thus, the team did notaddress this concern of the loggingcontractors. A separate concern relatedto pressure on logging contractors andtheir workers to accept potentiallyunsafe work on steep slopes isaddressed separately below in this tableand CAR 9/06 is imposed to addressthis concern.Page 20 of 89