Compromise Is In Everyone’S Interest
Negotiations resumed this week in the Kaiser strike and are expected to continue next week as well. That is wonderful news for both sides in this dispute and also for Spokane.
Our region needs a strong source of blue collar manufacturing jobs and if they are union jobs with good benefits and a reasonable degree of job security, so much the better.
Our region has suffered as a result of this strike. And Steelworker families have suffered most of all. Their unemployment benefits run out the middle of this month. Some have begun selling possessions to pay their bills. Businesses that appreciate hard-working Steelworker customers have experienced a pinch. The replacement workers, whose economic position is not sustainable over the long haul, simply do not compare as business customers to a Steelworker who is back on the job.
The union’s out-of-town leaders have tried to keep their troops fired up with the idea they can tough it out, show their solidarity and last “one day longer” than the company. That is the rhetoric of a power game between big institutions, a game in which little people often get squished, in which communities like ours get hurt.
This is a very sad but familiar thing. Like it or not, both Kaiser and the Steelworkers are players in a brutal, global economic contest that drives U.S. manufacturing jobs abroad unless aggressive cost cutting and productivity gains can keep them here. Unfortunately for Steelworkers, there is evidence that Kaiser’s position is getting stronger while the position of these straining families is getting weaker. Kaiser is still losing money but its losses are getting smaller and tend to result from things other than the strike. Some strike costs, such as training, have been absorbed and may not recur. Kaiser’s aluminum production is increasing, the company says, because the replacement workers, often younger than Steelworkers, are now skilled and are cranking out metal at a high rate.
Kaiser has offered to improve Steelworker pay and benefits but it aims for a contract designed for a significant productivity gain - enough to help keep it in the Northwest long-term. This would be achieved by employing several hundred fewer Steelworkers and by changing work rules that inhibit flexibility in task assignments.
As the bargaining enters the end game, the issue likely will be what happens to Kaiser’s older workers. Will they still qualify for work? If not, how good will their retirement package be? This is not a happy situation. It is simply painful and there is no way around it. The emotional posturing of a power game won’t solve it. Only negotiating can solve it. Let’s all hope the two sides, together, find a solution, for their interests and for our community’s.