Steelworkers March East, West Union Uses Break Between Bargaining Sessions To Launch An Offensive

Lest anyone forget there is a war going on in Spokane County, the United Steelworkers seized a break between bargaining sessions with Kaiser Aluminum on Wednesday to launch an offensive.

First, nearly 700 Steelworkers and their families met in Post Falls to study how Steelworkers in West Virginia won a bitter 20-month lockout in 1992. Then the union aimed west, sending more than 200 Steelworkers in buses to Boeing’s corporate headquarters in Seattle where today they plan to protest the use of metal made by replacement workers. Next stop: SeaTac Airport to protest TWA’s recent purchase of airplanes made of Kaiser metal.

The strategy is known as escalation, part of a campaign tactic developed by Steelworker President George Becker at the Ravenswood Aluminum Plant in West Virginia all those years ago.

“We learned at Ravenswood that even a company that produces no direct consumer products is still susceptible to consumer pressure,” David Foster, the union’s chief negotiator, wrote in a statement to members.

The international union, which has spent more than $5 million during the nearly 11-month battle with Kaiser Aluminum, promises to spend more.

Last week, Kaiser’s top officials said the union’s campaign has had “no effect” on their business. They have repeatedly called such tactics diversionary, saying the dispute will only be settled at the bargaining table.

But labor researchers from Cornell University and the University of Massachusetts were on hand Wednesday in Post Falls to say otherwise.

In an appearance partially paid for by the international union, Kate Bronfenbrenner and Tom Juravich outlined the union’s successful strategy at Ravenswood, best characterized by Becker himself.

“We had to get them thinking about the Steelworkers continually, every day. If we let an hour go by that our name didn’t cross their minds for some reason or another, then we were failing,” Becker said.

The two university professors, who wrote the May 1999 book “Ravenswood: The Steelworkers’ Victory and the Revival of American Labor,” told how unity within the local and a brash worldwide campaign aimed at the company’s customers, consumers and financiers eventually drove the company to bargain.

But the biggest applause was for Jerry Schoonover, president of Ravenswood Local 5668, who paid his own way to Spokane and brought nearly $3,700 in donations. Ravenswood was once part of the Kaiser empire.

In an accent as thick as the West Virginia foliage, Schoonover spoke of being out of work for 20 months and the legal and illegal tactics used to pressure the company: among them graffiti and the breaking of car windows.

He spoke of traveling to the London Metals Exchange to hand out leaflets to stockbrokers and being threatened. The Steelworkers also went to Congress, the Super Bowl and the Kentucky Derby to address consumers.

In a statement, Foster - who canceled his Post Falls appearance to complete an iron-ore contract in Minnesota - downplayed the two days of meetings with the company’s top negotiators.

“While it is always good to be back at the negotiating table, I want to caution all of us against any false optimism that an early settlement is at hand.

“Make no mistake, Kaiser is still trying to starve us into submission.”

Last week, Kaiser President Ray Milchovich said as the son of a Steelworker who survived a long strike he understood the pain involved. But he reiterated that the company intends to change how its plants operate.

Amid all the strategizing, were glimpses of the strain. The rally began with a moment of silence for Paul Bradley, the 38-year-old Trentwood Steelworker who drowned last week while saving his daughter on Long Lake. It was followed by homage to Henry J. Kaiser, “a grandfatherly man who used to give out quarters during the Lilac Parade.”