CILA Gone
In its 47th year, the Association, which has been the voice of those in the forest harvest sector throughout the region, has shut down, closing its office on Queensway and pulling the plug on its website. All that remains is an aging facebook page which offers no hint on the timeline about the demise of the Association.
“When the Association was first established, the contractors were small operators, but now, they are much larger operations and have their own people on staff to do many of the things the CILA was doing” says Roy Nagel, former Executive Director of CILA.
According to the CILA facebook page, all of the work conducted by the Association had the following four goals in mind:
– To help members stay viable and competitive
– To help members be as efficient and innovative as possible
– To strengthen the Association as the voice for the sector
– To strengthen the forest industry in the central interior
Nagel makes it clear there was no financial issue playing in this decision, that the Directors were not left holding the bag. The reality is that over the years, the CILA had achieved what it had set out to do, “If you look at the checklist, all the items had been completed” says Nagel.
The CILA had been successful in having the Province instill rules about hours of service, about training, about improvements to resource roads and about making changes to the Wildfire Act so the Province would be responsible. Nagel says the day to day matters are being handled by the membership “Now the contractors have their own staff who can make the calls to the CVSE (Commercial Vehicle Safety Enforcement) to deal with tickets and truck weight issues, or deal with WorkSafeBC” says Nagel.
The CILA also did a lot of advocacy work on the part of its members, but Nagel says even that can be handled by the big contractors now “They are big enough that they have a voice with their MLAs.”
Comments
Most logging in the Central Interior is controlled by about four major companies, ie; Canfor, West Fraser, etc; so perhaps their are no members left other than the big companies.
Palopu, the CILA was an association of logging and trucking contractors. It had nothing to do with lumber manufacturing companies.
Wonder what happened to the million or so dollars they got for the Carbon Off-Set.
Woodlot. Lumber manufacturing companies are the one’s who buy the logs, and pay the logging contractors.
As far as I know Canfor, West Fraser, etc; etc; were members of the CILA, however I could be wrong.
So they were needed to give the litte guy a voice, to protect his interests and instill safety. Now they are no longer needed, even though they did good in the past. The unions should take note of this decision.
So, Interceptor, are you suggesting that the only representation regarding safety that the workers in the region’s sawmills and pellet plants need is Work Safe BC.
Are you suggesting a non union work site is less safe than a unionized one?
Interceptor … That argument doesn’t work as it is well established the the existence of a unionized work force in the sector keeps the non-unionized employers motivated to compete for workers and to keep the union out of their workplace.
I can’t see the finances of the organization having no effect on the decision, even if your goals were completed but you’re still supporting your clients yet making money, why close the doors.
In my eyes, saying that their goals are completed makes no sense, are they saying that no further innovation can be made in the forest industry, that their members can become no more competitive and that the central interior forest industry is as competitive and as strong as possible? There is always room for improvement and new innovation.
64Pacific, I interpreted the commentary that the larger contractors saw less value in CILA as they have the size and expertise internally. And let’s face it, the industry is largely dominated by a smaller group of large contractors. They can probably achieve the same objectives together at a lower overhead cost by collaborating directly instead of through a third-party.
To Palopu’s point, I don’t think CILA ever allowed major mills to be members. I understand the ILA and TLA do but I think CILA always focused on contractor and supplier members.
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