Kaiser Strike Revealed Discontent

The United Steelworkers of America strike against Kaiser Aluminum Corp. was not eight days that shook the world.

In fact, even within the aluminum business, the brief labor dispute was an event tucked away in a small corner of a global industry. Kaiser produces less than 10 percent of the world’s supply of the light metal.

For Spokane, of course, the spectacle of 2,000 Steelworkers on the picket line was a remarkable display of dissatisfaction by workers widely considered to be among the area’s chosen, with high pay and rich benefits.

Some radio talk show callers, and jockeys, as well as the authors of letters to the newspaper, suggested Kaiser workers should try walking around in some thinner moccasins.

In that respect, the strike showed how Spokane’s ever more serviceoriented economy has distanced many residents from the rigors of a manufacturing environment.

They have no idea how dirty, hard, and dangerous a shift in the Trentwood rolling mill or, especially, the Mead smelter can be.

Based on pay scales included in contract summaries given to the Steelworkers before their vote, there is also an exaggerated perception about just how well-off Kaiser workers are.

The new wage scale tops out between $12.84 and $16.72 per hour in 1997, depending on job classification. Bonuses could add $2 more.

The reality for the company is a $106 million loss for 1994, and a whopping $652 million in 1993, although all but $81.5 million of that was due to one-time charges.

Kaiser’s fortunes have swung widely the last 10 years, taking with them the size of Steelworker paychecks.

With the aluminum industry and Kaiser in another upturn, the workers seemed poised for a return to better times.

Worker after worker on the picket lines outside Mead and Trentwood harkened back to a 1985 contract agreement when discussing their reasons for striking.

Wage and benefit concessions worth $4.50 an hour were made then to help the crippled company survive an unprecedented downturn in aluiminum prices, they said. In return, the Steelworkers believe they were given assurances that when prosperity returned to Kaiser, they would share the spoils.

They say they have been disappointed. How disappointed likely depends on whether the worker labors at Mead or Trentwood.

A bonus of up to $2 per hour for Mead workers is tied to the price of aluminum. As metal prices suffered, so did they, but with prices now higher the long drought in pay seemed to be over.

The catch at Mead is jobs. Many of the plant’s 900 Steelworkers fear language in the new contract will cost as many as 100 union members their livelihood.

As a result, workers there rejected the contract.

Bonuses at Trentwood are tied to plant efficiency. The 1,100 hourly workers there have been rewarded for participating in a process that cut almost 300 hourly and salaried positions in the last year.

Most of the blood there has already been shed. Trentwood Steelworkers overwhelmingly approved the contract.

But even there, workers who voted “yes” said it was time the union sent the company a message about the depth of worker discontent.

Pay aside, many do not trust management.

The most senior Kaiser workers go back 40 years with the company, and founder Henry Kaiser and son Edgar are familiar as real people, not just names in history books.

But the 1980s were the decade of the corporate raider, and Kaiser was among the raidees. Joseph Frates made the first attempt in 1986. He failed, but ally Alan Clore succeeded shortly afterward.

When the stock market briefly crashed in October 1987, the tremendously leveraged Clore was forced to sell to Houston financier Charles Hurwitz, chairman of Maxxam Corp.

Maxxam owns 60 percent of Kaiser.

Hurwitz, justifiably or not, is not a liked man among workers who unfavorably compare his aloof demeanor with that of the avuncular Kaisers.

They say they have become numbers, not people.

Last week, the numbers erupted.

Have the volcanologists on each side learned anything from the first general strike against the aluminum maker in its 49-year history?

The answer may not come until the newly approved contract is up for renewal in 1998.