Stand Up, Be Heard For Your Neighbors

Can Spokane’s cries of pain be heard at the bargaining table in Chicago?

By the time the strike against Kaiser Aluminum Corp. reached its 100-day mark Friday, restive voices were beginning to signal growing community impatience. End it, they’re saying.

Understandably so.

As seven of the Spokane area’s key religious leaders asserted in an open letter to both Kaiser and the United Steelworkers of America, 100 days is too long.

“They need to hear how the community feels,” said one of the signators, Bishop Walton F. Mize Sr. of Christ Holy Sanctified Church of America.

The problem is, it’s hard for the Spokane community to make its voice heard in Chicago where the two sides will meet again on Monday. Or in Pleasanton, Calif., where Kaiser’s headquarters are. Or in Houston, where the company’s major stockholder lives. Or in Pittsburgh where the Steelworkers union is based.

But those are the places where many of the critical decisions about Kaiser and its work force are being made.

Meanwhile, in the community where a major employer of longstanding is trying to function without 2,100 experienced hourly workers - and those workers and their families are scraping by without their regular paychecks - the impact is being felt socially, emotionally and economically.

Not only are the employees and the plants suffering, so is the community where their consumer spending and support of civic causes is impacted. Where, in fact, some families may have to rely on the very social-service programs they’d ordinarily be supporting. And where, sadly, personal relationships are sometimes showing scars as a result of the labor hostilities.

Those are consequences that we in Spokane and Kootenai counties must live with. They don’t show up very clearly in Pleasanton or Pittsburgh or Houston or Chicago, however.

On Tuesday, striking workers and supporters asked the Spokane County commissioners to put pressure on Kaiser to settle the strike. Asking the commissioners to take sides is unrealistic, but as public officials they could do as the concerned clergy members did, go public with their cares.

For that matter, the community as a whole needs to speak out, through whatever channels are possible.

It is encouraging that the bargainers will finally be in the same room again this week, talking about concrete proposals. There may be little reason to think the community’s entreaties will make a difference, but it can’t hurt.

All together now, face Chicago, and at the top of your lungs: “End it now!”