Kaiser, Union Set More Talks Kaiser Says It And Union Have Made Progress

After passing their deadline in Las Vegas late Wednesday, Kaiser Aluminum and the United Steelworkers agreed to schedule new dates to bargain a contract for 2,900 workers.

“During the past two weeks the parties have made significant steps toward an agreement,” Kaiser spokesman Scott Lamb said just after talks broke off at 11 p.m.

“However, they have been unable to reach a complete agreement.”

Lamb couldn’t say when the talks would resume. Nor could he disclose what progress had been made.

The delay leaves Steelworkers still wondering about their fate in the 22-month labor dispute.

This week, the two sides have been hashing out the final details of a labor contract affecting Kaiser Steelworkers at five plants. Kaiser and the union have been meeting regularly since January, reporting only some progress. In July they agreed upon a framework to end the labor dispute, which included the Wednesday bargaining deadline.

The dispute started when the Steelworkers - including about 2,200 in Spokane - went on strike over job security, wage and benefit issues in September 1998. The strike became a lockout in January 1999 when the company rejected the union’s offer to return to work without a contract.

If Kaiser and the union don’t have an agreement and if they haven’t agreed to extend their bargaining deadline, the remaining issues will be determined by an arbitration panel at the end of August. The Steelworkers should be back in the plants sometime in September.

During the day Wednesday, union locals for the Trentwood and Mead plants in Spokane responded to a trickle of phone calls from members looking for details from Las Vegas. They had very few details to share.

All they knew was that the talks have been intense, said Cathy Gunderson, a Mead union member who spent the day at the hall on Francis.

She said most workers are hoping the two sides will resolve their differences in bargaining.

“They really don’t want to have it arbitrated,” she said.

The sooner the contract is resolved, the better.

“Everybody’s looking forward to getting back to work,” Gunderson said. “They’re real optimistic as to what things will be like.”

With an end in sight, Mead union officials have started preparing the Steelworkers to return to their jobs.

At Trentwood that’s harder to do, because as many as 400 jobs are slated to be cut.

“We don’t know who is going back, how, when, what or where,” said Dan Sampson, a Steelworker at Trentwood.

Both Kaiser and the union promised to have more information about the Las Vegas talks today.