Kaiser Strike Looks Certain Union Says Pay, Benefits, Contract Work At Issue

In less than two days, Kaiser Aluminum’s 2,500 area workers may hear the word they’ve been dreading for months.

Strike.

With the United Steelworkers’ three-year contract set to expire Wednesday at 4 p.m., the workers, the plants and the community around them have prepared for a walkout.

If a strike is called, 2,115 hourly employees will be locked out and 465 salaried workers and managers will be locked in. The gates at the two area plants will stay shut until the strike is over, Kaiser officials say.

At issue, the union says, are improved wages and benefits. The company is behind the industry standard for pay, the union adds.

The company wants to consolidate job classifications for efficiency and reduce restrictions on contract work outside the plants.

Kaiser has tightened security at both its smelter at Mead and its flat-rolled products plant at Trentwood by improving fencing and adding video cameras.

The company has hired and trained replacement workers and has moved at least 30 portable trailers for temporary housing onto each site.

Workers say Kaiser already has invested millions at its plants in preparing for a strike.

Kaiser declined to comment on preparations for a work stoppage. “We’re in negotiations now and continue to negotiate with the intention of reaching a new agreement,” said Kaiser spokeswoman Susan Ashe.

“It doesn’t look good,” said Gus Johnson, mayor of Post Falls and a senior chemist who has worked at Kaiser 25 years. “It looks like we’ll be on strike. It’s not good for workers and not good for the company.”

On Monday, while news was scarce on contract negotiations taking place in Minneapolis, workers crowded into the tiny front office of the union hall across the street from the Trentwood plant.

They came in for news. They came to pick up signs for their cars and to figure out their shifts on the strike line. And they also came to return copies of a letter the company had sent to their homes last week detailing their rights and explaining they may not get their jobs back if they do strike. Similar letters went to workers at Mead and to employees in Tacoma, Ohio and Louisiana - all Kaiser plants under the same contract.

“The letter is a response to questions asked by employees,” Ashe said. “It should be accepted at face value.”

Returning the letters was about the extent of the control workers had on Monday.

“There’s nothing else I can do,” said Tom Bright, who has worked at Trentwood for two decades and said he now feels helpless. “I’ll sit around and wait to see what happens.”

Bright recalled the strike in 1995, the first in the company’s 49-year history. This time, he said, “It looks a lot more serious.”

Spokane County Sheriff John Goldman said deputies have held frequent meetings with both union and Kaiser management to discuss safety issues if a strike occurs.

Deputies would direct traffic and set up barriers at plant entrances to keep the two sides as far apart as possible, Goldman said.

They will also meet daily with both sides to keep “open the lines of communication,” the sheriff said.

During the 1995 strike, the Sheriff’s Department had about $28,000 in overtime and other costs. Goldman said he hopes better cooperation among all parties could minimize costs this time.

“We will do what we can to minimize confrontations,” he said. “But we also have a zero tolerance policy on violence.”

In 1995, deputies cited one man for disorderly conduct after he put a chair in the middle of Euclid Avenue and blocked the Trentwood entrance.

Spokane’s two Steelworker halls are counseling for a peaceful strike. Monday afternoon, after Kaiser workers finished their shifts, several converged on a sign shop in north Spokane. They added several hundred red and white picket signs to the 4,500 yard signs they had already assembled.

Cathi Gunderson, the first to arrive, nimbly stapled posters.

Gunderson, a 23-year Kaiser veteran and now a works repairer at Trentwood, said, “I’ve tried to stay abreast as good as I can to what’s going on. And I’m trying to be optimistic.”

Staff writers Adam Lynn and Laura Shireman contributed to this report.