Kaiser, Union Leave Rest To Arbitration Panel Will Decide Remaining Issues

Kaiser Aluminum and the United Steelworkers of America admitted Friday that they still couldn’t agree on a full labor contract.

Deadlines and intense negotiation sessions, first in Las Vegas and then this week in Houston, couldn’t bring the talks to a close.

So to end their 23-month labor dispute and give some resolution to 2,900 locked-out Steelworkers, the parties will turn to binding arbitration slated to run Aug. 21-25.

It is a process union members ratified in July by a vote of 1,681-601.

Now a five-member panel headed by one independent arbitrator will determine the final wording of the labor contract at the center of the dispute, which started with a Steelworkers’ strike 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.

The dispute has affected five Kaiser plants, including two in Spokane that employ about 2,100 Steelworkers.

The two sides have already agreed on issues such as contracting out work and removing the cost cap on retiree benefits. But before the final round of negotiations that began in late July, they hadn’t agreed on about 12 subjects, including wages, pensions and return-to-work protocols.

Kaiser and the union may now have reached agreement on some of the 12 areas, but neither side would discuss the items still in dispute.

“I can’t get into details like that,” said Jon Youngdahl, spokesman for the Steelworkers. “There’s still an agreement not to talk publicly about it.”

The company and the union could still try to negotiate before the arbitration dates.

But, “Our sights at this point are set on Aug. 21,” said Scott Lamb, spokesman for Kaiser.

Now the two sides have a few days to come up with their final contract offers, said Youngdahl. On Aug. 16, the union and Kaiser will exchange their “last, best” offers.

A five-member arbitration panel will then convene in Chicago on Aug. 21 to consider those offers. The union chose Ron Bloom, assistant to USWA president Ron Becker, and Robert Bratulich, assistant director to the USWA District 11 as the two to represent the Steelworkers on the panel. The company chose Kaiser CEO and president Ray Milchovich and Chicago attorney R. Theodore Clark.

Both parties agreed upon professional arbitrator Seymour Strongin as the independent, impartial fifth panelist and leader of the group.

Strongin, a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators, is from Washington, D.C., and has experience with other labor negotiations in the metal industry. Recently he arbitrated between the Steelworkers and AK Steel, an Ohio-based company locked in a labor dispute with 600 workers.

“The company will appear before the panel as well the union to argue the points of their contract offers,” Lamb said.

The panel will choose either the company’s position or the union’s for each of 12 areas that have not been resolved over the past few weeks. Those positions will come from the contract offers finalized on Aug. 16.

“We look forward to having the dispute behind us,” Milchovich said in a statement Friday.

News that the two parties finally agreed that they couldn’t agree reached the union halls Friday afternoon.

Some members were glad to hear of something definitive after so many weeks of postponements.

“I was glad when we voted for this thing here in July,” said Rick Thain, a 37-year Kaiser veteran. Thain, who was a works repairman and maintenance mechanic at the Mead plant, is ready to retire. A conclusion could mean a signing bonus for him as he leaves.

“I just want to get this thing done and over,” he said.

This sidebar appeared with the story: AT A GLANCE The final details

Binding arbitration, slated Aug. 21 through 25, will determine the final wording of the labor contract between the United Steelworkers of America and Kaiser Aluminum.