Lakeland Logging Contractors and Truckers Have a Deal!
Wednesday, June 29, 2005 01:26 PM
It's a deal!
An agreement has been ratified between Lakeland Mills contractors and logging truckers.
The 5 year package worked out between the contractors and the Prince George Trucking Association gives the truckers guaranteed weights of a full load. Rates of $2.99 and a half cents per ton hour on short hauls ( less than 100 Kilometers) and $3.13 per ton hour on the long hauls (over 100 K). The deal also gives contractors the flexibility on calling in trucks to pick up business when things are really busy. There are also assurances for road maintenance and safety concern committees.
Developed with the help of Frank Everitt of the Steelworkers-IWA Local 1-424 negotiators, the deal is a little sweeter than the one recently ratified at Winton Global. "The difference" says Everitt, "is that in this case we were focusing on "long haul-short haul", while at Winton the issue was long log-short-log."
Everitt says they will now work on developing a rate model that can be used for producing future agreements.
Talks with Canfor's contractors continue, and Everitt says certainly some of the language in this package will be on the table for the Canfor talks.
That round of discussions is taking a little longer than expected. "There are a lot more players" says Everitt who remains optimistic an agreement is just on the horizon.
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Consolidation in the forest tenures created this problem in the first place so the only short term solution in this kind of controlled market is to have a strong assciation voice on behalf of the truckers. United they stand divided they fall.
Long-term we need to open up the log harvesting market to a open market governed by the crown within log catchment boundaries. In this situation we have logging contractors bidding to log the land, and an open market for the transaction of these logs to the forest companies that put the highest value on these logs for the crown. This is the way to create fiber certainty for new investment in the forest industry and in particular the value added sector.
Prince George should become the Chigaco Board of Exchange for the raw log market covering the entire province bounded by catchment areas. This could later be expanded into other things such as wheat.
In the last ten years I've watch all my friends with logging trucks go broke working for minimum wage. I got out after a year because the pay wasn't worth the risk and time.