Kaiser Workers Walk Off The Job More Than 2,000 Spokane Workers Strike After Rejecting Contract

Workers at Kaiser Aluminum Corp. plants in Mead and Trentwood walked off the job Monday for the first time in the company’s 49-year history.

The 2,048 Spokane-area members of the United Steelworkers of America last week had joined another 1,000 workers at Kaiser plants in Tacoma, Ohio and Louisiana in rejecting a proposed new contract by a 200-vote margin.

Union representatives have returned home from negotiations in Louisiana, and no new talks are scheduled.

Monday, as workers emerged from the plants for the 4 p.m. shift change, picket lines went up.

Mead workers jeered as supervisors clad in green pants, blue jackets and white helmets walked into the plant’s potrooms to take their places.

“We don’t think they’re going to last very long,” said Mike Brasca, who has worked in the plant seven years.

“They’re going to have to tap a lot of metal out of those pots,” added Kevin Clark, a 17-year veteran who said he has been laid off four times.

“We don’t want to have to do this but we’re tired of giving up (compensation),” he said. “It’s all I’ve seen.”

A prolonged strike would not only have a major effect on Kaiser and its workers, but suppliers and merchants as well.

The company estimates its overall economic impact in the area at more than $500 million a year.

Mead, where most of Kaiser’s domestic smelting capacity is located, has about 135 non-union salaried employees and 909 hourly union workers.

Company officials said all five plants would continue operating using salaried employees, who were instructed over the weekend to prepare to move into the facilities with sleeping bags and three changes of clothing.

In a statement, Kaiser Chairman George Haymaker said the company proposal was fair to workers while recognizing challenges facing the aluminum industry from foreign competition.

Russia, for example, produces enormous amounts of aluminum to raise cash.

“Our immediate priority is to do everything we can to serve and protect our customers, and we will do that by operating either all or those parts of our facilities that are most important to them,” Haymaker said.

In the case of Mead, that means continued operation of six out of eight potlines.

Trentwood will downsize its casting, rolling and coating operations.

Trentwood products range from sheet for aluminum cans to thicker coils and plates for the aerospace, transportation and other industries.

The plant employs 1,139 hourly union workers and 282 salaried managers.

The Mead smelter can produce as much as 220,000 tons of aluminum annually from its eight potlines.

But output has been scaled back to six potlines since January 1993 because of drought-caused power shortages in the Northwest.

Low aluminum prices were also a constraint until about a year ago, when they began a recovery that has taken them back to about $1 per pound.

The high price, posted on a signboard over Mead’s main gate, was just one of the sore points with the 100-odd pickets who appeared eager but apprehensive Monday.

Hal Dornquast, a rodding room steward, said workers still smart from concessions worth $4.50 an hour made in 1985, when low aluminum prices threatened to drive Kaiser into bankruptcy.

“We gave that up to save the company,” he said. “We didn’t get it back.”

Now, Dornquast said, Kaiser may earn record profits after a few years of losses.

Bobby Jack, acting steward for Steelworkers Local 329, which represents Mead’s hourly workers, said the atmosphere was calm as the strike deadline neared.

He said he expected little friction while management tries to operate Mead at its current, depressed output level.

“We’re not out there to cause a problem, said Fred Gariepy, the local’s strike information director.

He said pickets would be outside the plant gates around the clock, but they would allow vehicles to pass.

Officials from other area unions have indicated they will honor the picket lines, he said.

Gariepy said union officials were moving to stop early confrontations reported at one Trentwood gate Monday evening, when strikers pounded their signs on a truck arriving at the facility.

Joe Thorp, president of Steelworker Local 338, which represents Trentwood, said union members are not hostile toward Kaiser, but want their contributions recognized.

“We want a company that makes money, and we want some of it,” he said.

Besides past givebacks, Thorp said the sticking points in talks with Kaiser were pension increases, changes in the medical plan and the text of a letter of understanding that sets rules by which the company can change job descriptions and combine positions.

One union official estimated the new language would mean elimination of 100 Mead jobs.

At Trentwood, where workers had already accepted some changes that reduced both hourly and salaried positions, the letter of understanding was less of an issue, according to pickets.

“They’ve pretty much done it to us,” said Dan Schaffer, a eight-year veteran in the remelt area of the plant, on Monday afternoon.

“We’ve bent over backwards to help them,” agreed Larry Phillips, a furnace operator with 17 years of experience.

“We’re not asking for anything that’s not already ours.”

As the evening wore on, about 10 workers stood on each side of Euclid along Sullivan near the main Trentwood entrance, listening to an Aerosmith song blaring from a a parked truck.

They ate McDonald’s hamburgers in the unseasonably warm evening air.

Drivers honked their horns in encouragement as they passed by workers raising signs above their heads.

Some passengers waved, and one man flashed the picketers a thumbsup.

“We’re getting tons of support from the community,” striker Carl Caughran said. “From the truckers, from the cars, we’ve gotten a lot of support on Sullivan.”

Ken Steely wasn’t scheduled to picket, but he showed up anyway.

“I’m out here for support. So is my wife and she doesn’t even work here,” he said. “We’re making people pay attention.”

Caughran said he is making less money than when he began working for Kaiser in 1979.

“We’re working class,” he said. “We’re just trying to get a fair shake.”

The pact rejected last week had been announced in January, two months after an existing contract had expired.

But, as in past years, a potential strike was delayed to give negotiators more time to reach a settlement.

Graphic: Picket Lines

MEMO: These sidebars appeared with story: On Strike Kaiser plans to continue operating plants while pickets are on the line. No talks are scheduled.

What Kaiser makes Kaiser’s Mead smelter converts raw alumina into aluminum. The aluminum is shipped to the company’s Trentwood plant as well as other customers for fabrication into a variety of products. Kaiser’s Trentwood rolling mill produces aluminum can stock, which is sold to beer and soft drink companies to make containers. The plant, which was recently modernized, also processes aluminum into custom products for industrial customers.

The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Bert Caldwell Staff writer Staff writer Gita Sitaramiah contributed to this report.