New Kaiser investment welcome news
Kaiser Aluminum has been rolled, flattened and stretched. Just like the products the Spokane Valley company makes.
Last week’s announcement Kaiser will spend another $150 million on its Trentwood plant is welcome confirmation the company will continue to be a stalwart among Spokane-area manufacturers after more than 70 years.
Built to supply aluminum to Boeing Co. and other aircraft makers during World War II, Kaiser has been able to evolve along with that market and others demanding the highest quality rolled and plate products even as customers adopt new resin-based materials for some applications.
Along the way, Kaiser had to survive a 2002 bankruptcy that was the end of the company’s Mead smelter. Hundreds of workers lost their jobs, and had to accept smaller, government-guaranteed pensions. But the reorganization was a lifesaver for Trentwood and its 900 workers.
The company has invested more than $240 million in new equipment at Trentwood since the reorganization. Aluminum has many unique metallurgical characteristics, and the machinery to control and exploit them includes, for example, clamps powerful enough to stretch a thick slab of aluminum up to a quarter-inch.
It’s like the board-stretcher every amateur carpenter dreams of.
The new investment will help keep Kaiser competitive as the aircraft industry becomes less concentrated in the United States and Europe. More metal suppliers will be seeking that business; some with the aid of governments anxious to preserve or expand their aluminum industry, profitable or not.
And this is not about just Kaiser. Companies such as Wagstaff and Pyrotek have grown up with Kaiser; using its products and drawing on the expertise of its workforce.
Would a cluster of more than 80 aerospace-related companies have developed in Eastern Washington and North Idaho without Kaiser at its nucleus? Probably not, and the region would be much the poorer for it.
Kaiser has also become a model for management-labor relations. The relationship fractured during the late 1980s and 1990s under former owner Charles Hurwitz. The breakdown culminated in a strike/lockout of the United Steelworkers of America that, along with the 2000-2001 regional energy crisis, led to the bankruptcy.
As part of the reorganization, trusts were created that hold Kaiser shares on behalf of the Steelworkers. The employees also select a member of Kaiser’s board of directors. The long period of labor peace that ensued is a reassurance to customers their orders will be filled on time.
If there’s a cloud, it’s Kaiser’s inclusion on a list of 35 companies that might be affected by a rewrite of Washington’s air pollution regulations. As we have said before, imposing new costs on companies competing with much dirtier facilities overseas makes little sense.
Kaiser has a proud history in Spokane as a manufacturer, employer and community leader. New investment promises to keep that legacy alive.
For Spokane, aluminum is a light metal in more ways than one.
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