Kaiser Adds Workers At Mead Plant But Company Mum On Plans To Restart Two Idle Potlines
Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. has added workers in the potrooms of its Mead smelter, but company officials are noncommittal about the possibility two idle potlines will be restarted anytime soon.
Spokeswoman Susan Ashe said Kaiser has rehired all former employees laid off during past production slowdowns. That has allowed the company to hire new workers for the potrooms in recent weeks, she said.
The smelter employed 1,106 at the end of July, an increase of 77 in two months.
The company has announced it will screen additional applicants for potential potroom positions through the Washington Department of Employment Security.
The department began taking applications Monday, with the deadline for filing Sept. 8.
Most new employees at Mead start work on one of the eight long potlines, where alumina is transformed into aluminum.
The jobs have traditionally been among the most desirable blue collar positions in the area because of the pay and benefits.
But the work, such as setting the carbons that conduct electricity through molten aluminum, is hot and dirty.
Ashe would not estimate the number of job candidates Kasier might further screen in-house, then train.
And, she said, the screening does not signal any immediate plans to start one or both of the potlines that were shut down in August 1992 in response to a partial cutoff of electricity by the Bonneville Power Administration.
Although that power has since been restored, Ashe said Kaiser has kept the lines down because world aluminum inventories, which depress prices, remain high.
“We would expect a restart sometime in the future,” she said, without identifying a specific time line.
Vice President Robert Irelan noted that inventories are declining as demand catches up with supply.
“We’ll restore the idle capacity when market forces demand,” he said.
Kaiser, Spokane County’s largest manufacturing employer, also operates a rolling mill at Trentwood.
, DataTimes