Union Leaders Split Over Proposed Kaiser Contract Some Labor Officials Say Contract Is Best Deal Possible; Others Balk At Pay, Benefit Offers

The region’s top United Steelworkers of America official says he is convinced Kaiser Aluminum Co. has made the best contract offer it can afford to make to its union workers.

“I think we got way above what the company originally wanted to offer us,” Robert Petris, the union’s District 38 director, said in a telephone interview from his Kent offices this week.

Ballots for the ratification vote on the proposed contract were mailed last week to the 3,000 Steelworkers covered by it. The ballots are to be returned by mail to Baton Rouge, La., where they will be counted Feb. 17.

If the four-year contract proposal is rejected, Petris said, there is no room left for maneuvering.

“We maneuvered from October to January,” Petris said. “This is all there is at the present time. If (the members) vote no, the only option left is to strike.”

Leaders of Steelworkers Local 329, representing more than 1,000 employees of Kaiser’s Mead Works smelter, have advised their members to reject the contract. Leaders of Steelworkers Local 338, representing more than 1,100 employees of Kaiser’s Trentwood Rolling Mill, have recommended that their members approve the contract.

Gary Sites, president of Steelworkers Local 341 in Newark, Ohio, said earlier this week he recommended to his 300 members that they “don’t support the package.”

Local union officials representing some 300 Kaiser employees in Gramercy, La., and 250 Kaiser employees in Tacoma have not returned phone calls inquiring about their recommendations to their members. But Petris said the local union leadership at both locations offered the contract package to their members without a recommendation.

Kaiser’s contract with the Steelworkers expired Oct. 31. The company and union have been operating under an extension of that contract.

Petris headed up the union bargaining team that finally reached a tentative agreement with Kaiser on Jan. 5.

“The fact is, this is an excellent contract,” Petris said. “Under this agreement, Kaiser workers will be as highly paid and will have benefits equal to everyone else in the (aluminum) industry.”

While emphasizing the right of the Mead union leadership to recommend against passage of the package, Petris nonetheless expressed his frustration with their stance.

“When I ask them what more they want, no one can come up with a definitive answer,” Petris said. “Sometimes I get the feeling they just want to vote against something.”

Steve Sims, Local 329’s grievance committee chairman who was also a member of the union negotiating team, was angered by Petris’s comments.

“To come out with a (statement) saying how great this offer is is a real crock,” Sims said Wednesday.

Sims took issue with Petris’ contention that the contract will put Kaiser employees on a par with other companies’ workers. He said both Alcoa and Reynolds have overall packages worth $1 an hour more than the Kaiser proposal. And, he said, both companies will negotiate new contracts next spring, “putting us even farther behind.”

Sims said Petris’s comments don’t change Mead union leaders’ view of the contract.

“We’re still pushing for a `no’ vote,” he said. “The vote will be close, but I feel comfortable that we’ve got that `no’ vote.”

Mead officials are upset about a number of points in the tentative agreement. They say it doesn’t include enough of a basic wage increase, they aren’t happy with the overall changes in the medical benefits package, and they don’t like changes in the portion of the contract tying a wage bonus to the world price of aluminum.

But they are most concerned about changes they say will give the company greater leeway in combining and changing job assignments.

“That’s the strike issue,” said Sims. “Under those changes, we think we could lose up to 100 jobs at Mead during the coming year.”

Dave Kjos, Kaiser’s Mead Works manager, agrees with Petris that the Mead union leaders are underestimating the proposed contract.

“This contract has tremendous value to them as a membership, both in the base wage, and in the pension and benefits,” Kjos said in a recent interview. “It’s far from being concessionary. It’s a very healthy package.”

Leaders of Steelworkers Local 338, representing Trentwood workers, have been reluctant to detail their reasons for supporting the contract. But Ray Milchovich, vice president of Kaiser’s flat-rolled products division, says their stand represents the growing labormanagement partnership.

“In the 15 years I’ve been (at Trentwood) I’ve never seen a union leadership take a more constructive, positive approach than this group does,” he said. “And it’s not that they’ve switched over and support management. They support their people very well. But they are in tune with reality.”