By Sue Bolton
On October 27 the Victorian government gave the go-ahead for large-scale woodchipping in the old growth forests of East Gippsland. The ACTU supported the move as "a welcome and logical" response to the industry's needs.
But Martin Daley, a member of the timber workers' union in the 1980s and the author of a Friends of the Earth pamphlet, Forest Jobs: What Future?, found the ACTU's response surprising.
"You don't expect unions to side with employers in an industry, " Daley told Green Left Weekly. "The unions should have a long-term view of the industry, working with the environment movement and with employers who have a long-term view — not with the people who want to go in, rip out a quick profit, then get out."
Daley recalled a mass meeting of timber workers in the mid-1980s, organised by their union to protest against the extension of national parks in East Gippsland. Yet most of the timber in the areas concerned was useful only for woodchipping and not for sawlogs.
"I couldn't understand why the union was arguing for increasing the capitalisation of the industry, because that leads to a less labour-intensive industry which results in less jobs as well as a destroyed ecosystem", Daley said. This was the same argument put by the big employers.
Add to this the union's indifference to health and safety: then the low level of union membership in the sawmill industry and the almost non-existent membership among the timber-getting contractors was no surprise. "During the three or four years that I worked in the industry, the union never took a position independent of the employers", Daley said.
Will widespread woodchipping create jobs? A study of timber industry jobs in the East Gippsland area cited by Friends of the Earth shows that over the last 20 years there has been a 40% increase in the amount of timber harvested and a 40% decrease in the number of jobs in the industry. Woodchipping employs only 2% of workers in the industry, yet uses up 45% of the area harvested.
"Workers in the industry are only antagonistic to the environment movement because of misinformation from employer groups", says Daley.
"Even if workers are sympathetic with what environmentalists are saying, they can't speak out or they'll face the sack for their views. But if large-scale woodchipping goes ahead, many of them will be out of work soon anyway, when the resource runs out."
Daley condemns the timber-getting practices of the companies. "A lot of good millable quality timber is cut down and left on the ground as 'waste'. Each good sawlog that is woodchipped as 'waste' is as good as another job lost in the sawmill industry."
Daley claims most of the companies in East Gippsland rort the system for the payment of royalties. "The government gives a discount on royalties if a log is faulty. For example, if a log is considered to be 30% defective, the company gets a 30% discount on royalties. Most of the companies claim logs to be faulty when they're not, in order to claim these discounts."
Why is the industry so desperate for woodchipping? According to Daley, "sawmills have big stockpiles of sawlogs. They can't compete with the sawlog timber from developing countries where wages are so low and health and safety conditions even lower than those in Australia. At the moment it is more profitable for companies to woodchip the old-growth native forests in Australia."
But in a few years, when the woodchipping plantations in countries like Chile are ready for production, woodchippers in Australia won't be able to compete and will move overseas. Daley concludes: "The race is on to woodchip as much of Australia as possible while it's still profitable".
To save jobs and save the environment, Daley says an initial step is tighter government control to ensure that value-adding is achieved. "The industry has to pay higher royalties. If they have to pay more for the resource, they won't treat it as rubbish."
Daley also demands stricter controls over the harvesting of timber to ensure the minimum environmental impact, and new methods of harvesting have to be looked at. The current method of clear-felling is very destructive.
" Any log has to be used to its maximum value. Timber products should be produced to have a long life, and not be throwaway items. Production of inferior quality timber goods has to be stopped. Companies must be audited by the government without prior notice to ensure that the companies are value-adding, and not just putting good quality sawlogs through the woodchipper."
In his pamphlet for Friends of the Earth, Daley writes, "There are two unfortunate features of the free market system of economics: 1)It allows profit to outweigh humanitarian, ecological and cultural values; and 2)It fails to recognise the limitations of a finite world. For instance, the undisturbed forest of East Gippsland is supposed to be a renewable resource.
"Timber industry executives are required to make company shares attractive and profitable for shareholders. This may impair or compromise judgment when making business decisions as the objective is to seek the highest profit regardless of job losses and the destruction of unique forest.
"The current popularity of rationalist economic theory has seen an elite few benefit from the erosion of basic living standards for the many."
In concluding the interview, Daley said that "a strong union movement working with the environment movement could turn the situation in the industry around to ensure the preservation of the environment and the preservation of jobs."