My solution if I was Stephen Harper. I would see it legislated so that all of Canada's forest companies are acting as a kind of OPEC of 2x4's.

One pretty good known by now is that we are not going to export our way out of this. The multi-national solution of last man standing is not a very good option either. Neither would be the idea to mess with the markets. It seems the biggest losers will be the employees and there communities.

IMO they should make a new law effective immediately that legislates a full-time work week in any saw mill or planner mill in Canada is now hereby a 30-hour work week, from a 40-hour current work week. Why does it always have to be 40-hours anyways, and why the same for all industries? With a 30-hour work week the employer then splits the difference in loss wage with the employee through a 12.5% raise in the hourly rate. The effect is to put a mere upward pressure on the collective selling price of only a few percent by the 1000 board feet, but in the terms of employment flexibility, and blunting the impact of slow times on the community it is something that IMO would have merit. A concept with shared responsibility for long term success between the employees and the employers, as well as create the potential for setting a new standard across the industry, which is why it would have to be the law.

Time Will Tell

Why do the profits from efficency always go to the board room? I know they own the equity shares is the classic answer, but would it not be more sustainable as an industry and for this country if the employees shared in the reward of efficiency (ie shorter work week with higher pay)?

If that was the norm don't you think that would easily be adjusted for in the markets through regular market forces to the industry as a whole?

No matter how bad things get people will always need lumber to build houses, and natural disasters will still happen. Canada's market share is large enough that it can be a market setter if co-ordinated correctly IMO.

Good grief, is Eagleone for real?

In the communist days they used to have secret police watching to make sure everyone was kept in line as well.

communist!

communist!

The "profits from efficiency" don't really go to the "board room", eagleone. Such as they are, they largely go to the Banks.

Profits as a percentage of Sales have been in continual decline for years, and it would be hard for them to be otherwise. Since with ongoing labor displacement, (all increases in 'efficiency' involve labor displacement), overall incomes are falling in ratio to the overall costs of production being impressed into price at final retail.

Personally, I think you're right on track in calling for a shorter work week. It's been 40 hours since the end of World War One, and in any country that's had all the technological advances that've boosted productivity we've had since then, it should probably be even less than 30 hours.

I disagree with the way you advocate financing that though. There are ways to do it, but not through price increases and quotas. And those that call you a 'communist'only betray their own ignorance of both communism, (which never advocated a 'shorter' work week ~ theirs was to be a "Worker's Paradise" ~ which meant MORE 'work', not LESS), and modern financial processes.

Our competition is Foreign Countries and cheap labour. Because of the 15% tax on lumber exports to the USA once lumber falls below $300.00 per 1000FBM, the high Canadian Dollar, the decline in US housing starts, and of course our high cost of labour, transportation, etc; simply put, we cannot compete. Canadian builders in some areas of Canada are now importing lumber from the USA, and China.

Looking at some clothing in a store to-day I noticed they were manufactured in the following places.

(1) India (2) Indonesia (3) Mexico (4) China. There are of course lots of other Countries, none of which we can compete with. This problem is spreading fast beyond of clothing industrie, with the help of the Multi-Nationals, and the situation can only get worse.

If ever there was a time for good leadership, good Government, and co-operation between industry and unions it is now. Do you think we can make it happen, or will greed continue to rule the roost????

I laugh at those that would call me a communist. They know not what they talk of. A simple industry wide regulation in regards to the full-time work week is no different than work safe BC coming in and saying all truck drivers require a class 1 license to operate an air brake truck, or that all welders require to wear eye protection, or even things like no truck driver can work more then 14 hour days.

What would happen if some companies were allowed to work their drivers 22 hours a day, and others only 14 hours a day? Would the results be a benefit to society?

If I was a communist I would say lets compete with the communist wages in China so that our multinational forest companies can make massive profits for their shareholders and our Canadian workers can work for poverty without safety regulations or worker rights so as to compete with the communist ideals.

BTW Communism and Fascism are basically the exact same thing when taken to the extreme. Both are a means to a centralized society controlled from the top down via private central banksters. One just plays on the fake notion of a workers paradise, and the other plays on the notion that monopoly capitalism is the most efficient end solution. Both are flawed as is anything not taken in moderation with limits to its extremism.

I'd say my solution is a populist solution that advocates free enterprise enabling policies to level the playing field in the forest industry (some companies may only be able to operate on a 30 hour work week), as well as allowing the free time for employees to contribute in other ways to the economy on their own free time (enabling small business enterprise). I make no apologies for advocating Canadians get a fair return on the extraction and processing of public resources.

If the rest of the private sector economy not enabled by public resources wishes to compete they would then have to reflect on the new reality of the standard set by the forestry sector. There should be nothing at all wrong with setting a higher standard and in the process enabling flexibility for the forestry sector to manage what will be an otherwise devastating downturn in the economy.

Solutions can not be found piecemeal one saw mill at a time, and the playing field must be one that enables all players in the sector across the board, or it will be a race to the bottom with the lowest common denominator. Canada wasn't built by the lowest common denominator, that’s how the communist countries were built, and we don't want to emulate them in any way, or we will get their results.

IMO it comes down to leadership and the politicians coming out in front of this issue with their ideas. I have yet to hear any so I put forward one of my own. It is clear production is far outpacing demand, and so policy needs to enable an across the board reduction in production ‘’’obligations’’’ by the mills, but how can this be done while saving Canadian jobs and simultaneously lifting the end products revenue long term? I would be all ears to any competing solutions if they are out there….

Socred writes, "The "profits from efficiency" don't really go to the "board room", eagleone. Such as they are, they largely go to the Banks."

I think that would be splitting hairs. The clear facts are that the board room makes all decisions on investments, as well as policy on revenue and costs. They determine if the board members recieve a huge bonus, or if workers recieve a raise, they also decide if new debt should be taken on, or if efficiencies can be created through existing cash flow.

All corporate decisions eminate from the board room, and clearly the board rooms of the last 30 years have allocated all increases in profits due to new efficiencies to the compensation package of board room members, sometimes the banks in new debt, and the equity shareholders who vote for them. Increasingly these equity shareholders are not the workers that create the profits, but rather hedge funds and other paper tigers controlled and manipulated by large banks and foreign national investment funds.

We the people at some point will have to rebalance this relationship, or we will all become defacto slaves if we are not already.

IMO the whole banking system of fake paper money created by banks through fraudulante asset backed security sales to the bond market for fraudulant asset values; so they can multiply their money supply by a further 10 fold due to the fractional banking system; has now enabled a new era where the value of currency is not in the work provided; but rather in the casino markets of paper money and the banksters that control that paper money to then control the corporations who have structures that are outdated to deal with the new realities of bankster capitalism and corpocracies that provide no protection for the citizen worker and investor. We will all pay the price for this and our zionist politicians will all try to point to us as the problem and not their flawed and unethical perversions of our economic systems and political policy.

Time Will Tell

No, that's not 'splitting hairs' at all. Without the constant availablity of financial credit the 'board room' is completely impotent. Financial credit will only continue to be available so long as the banker believes the business has potential profitability. For it's from the profit, the excess of sales over expense, that the loan will be amortized.

There are many financial perversions, as you correctly note, but these are the 'effects' of a financial system which forgets that finance is supposed to properly reflect reality, not pre-determine it. And the pursuit of money is only a means to an end, not the end itself.

I guess it all comes down to who's perspective of the financial system one considers.

BTW Next year for the first time bankruptcy home foreclosures in the United States will be more than the amount of new homes built in that same time period. Only a couple of years ago it was ten homes built to every foreclosure, now at parity the foreclosures have gone up over 30% a month for the last 3-4 months in a row.

We are not going to be moving a lot of lumber any time soon IMO.

Finally, time to buy in.