Work-Sharing is

the federal government’s answer for employers and workers to avoid

temporary layoffs when business

activity is reduced; workers are paid federal benefits for the days they don’t work.

A number of forest workers in the 100 Mile House area are on this program, including Norm Knutson, who has worked at the

West Fraser Mill at Chasm for almost five years as a stacker operator.

Knutson said the program sounds good but there are major problems; he hasn’t been paid

for his Work-

Sharing since the beginning of July and he’s getting further and further behind financially.

“It’s hard times and that program’s supposed to be helping but it isn’t,” he said.

Knutson’s wife, Jen, is on maternity leave and he said, with five kids, he has been forced into bankruptcy.

He said he’s not the only one in this position.

Garry Hill, West Fraser’s Chasm manager, said there are a number of workers at both the Chasm and 100 Mile House mills with the same problem.

He said the employees and

West Fraser complete the necessary forms every week but the system bogs down and the employees don’t get their money.

“We’re trying to get to the bottom of it,” said Hill.

Cathy McLeod, Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo MP, called this an “absolute hardship” for the workers.

Her staff has been in direct contact with Service Canada to get it rectified ASAP.

McLeod said they were trying to determine where the problem was.

Marty Gibbons, United Steelworkers Local 1-417 president, said his office

tried to contact McLeod several times and neither she nor any of her office staff returned his calls.

The union then contacted Norm Macdonald, NDP MLA and provincial forests critic, and Libby Davies, Vancouver East MP who championed their cause.

“They rattled any cages they could,” he said.

Gibbons said he shortly received calls from EI offices in Vancouver, Kelowna and Prince George and an aide to the minister in charge of EI.

Workers at Chasm all had their case files audited last week and Gibbons expects they will be receiving cheques although that does take time.

“It’s been an undue hardship for a lot of people,” said Gibbons.

The local represents 2,000 workers and Gibbons said all the sites on the work share program have had difficulties but none as bad as Chasm.

Bill Derbyshire, Steelworkers Local 425 in Williams Lake, responded to questions from the Free Press via email and said that he can understand the frustration this poor worker is going through.

“We had a lot of frustrated workers when we first

went on the job

share at 100 Mile House West Fraser operations,” he said.

Derbyshire said the union has been told that workers will no longer have to fill out cards and Service Canada is doing a new system for workers at West Fraser 100 Mile House.

The union and companies are currently in negotiations as their agreements were up on July 1.