Union Boycotts Kaiser Clients Steelworkers Hoping To Repeat 1990 Success

The United Steelworkers of America is urging all union members to boycott Pepsi and Budweiser for using metal made by replacement workers at Kaiser Aluminum.

Steelworkers, locked out at five Kaiser plants since January, expanded the boycott to Spokane last week. In May, the national union began passing out leaflets in areas where Kaiser metals are in use, including the San Francisco Bay area, Denver and Seattle-Tacoma.

Labor leaders say they aren’t worried that discouraging Kaiser customers today could damage the company where they they hope to work once again if a labor agreement is reached.

For the Steelworkers, it’s a proven tactic. A similar campaign against Stroh’s, Budweiser, Pepsi, Coca-Cola and others was a central element in ending a 20-month dispute at Ravenswood Aluminum in West Virginia in 1990, according to an expert on the dispute.

In that case, Steelworkers stood outside the Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500 confronting beverage consumers. They also “followed the metal” to less obvious customers and succeeded in getting most of the major can and beverage companies to stop using Ravenswood metal, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University and co-author of a book on the dispute.

“It was extremely effective, without question,” Bronfenbrenner said.

The current boycott is designed to improve the union’s position in any upcoming talks.

But attacking Kaiser in the highly competitive, low-profit-margin aluminum can business is foolhardy and diversionary, company representatives say.

“We are a very small player in the can business, therefore a customer base is critical. It just doesn’t wash as to why you’d attempt to harm the customer base,” said Kathryn Genteman, vice president of human relations and environmental affairs in Kaiser’s flat-rolled products division.

Union leaders say they aren’t worried about lasting damage.

“We’ll get the customers back when we go back to work,” said Wes Beck, president of Local 338 at Trentwood. “If the Steelworkers aren’t in there, Kaiser doesn’t deserve to be in business.”

A Pepsi Bottling Group spokesman said the company has “a high regard for organized labor.” He called the boycott “a little out of focus.”

“We’re not a party to the dispute,” said Larry Jabbonsky, a spokesman for the Pepsi Bottling Group in New York. Less than 5 percent of the aluminum in Pepsi products nationally is Kaiser metal, he said. In addition, the United Steelworkers of America represents workers in four of Pepsi’s bottling facilities nationwide.

”That they would suggest a boycott impacting the families of their own union members is somewhat ironic,” he said.

Anheuser-Busch on Friday issued a statement saying that its cans and lids do not contain Kaiser metals.

But Kaiser spokeswoman Susan Ashe said while Anheuser-Busch is not a direct customer, it is an indirect customer through a third party.