Kaiser Process In Skilled Hands Longtime Arbitrator Will Help End Dispute That Has Kept Steelworkers Off Job Nearly Two Years

Kaiser Aluminum and the United Steelworkers of America exchanged final contract offers Wednesday, the first step in the arbitration process that will end their 23-month labor dispute.

At the center of the process is arbitrator Seymour Strongin of Washington, D.C. He will lead a five-member panel in choosing either the company’s position or the union’s on each of the unresolved issues.

Neither side would disclose details Wednesday on the specific issues or even how many issues have kept them from reaching a final contract that affects 2,900 Steelworkers at five Kaiser plants, including 2,100 in Spokane.

Strongin, 70, has arbitrated numerous labor disputes - including many in the metals industry. While he would discuss his background, he declined to comment on details about the Kaiser labor negotiations.

“It has been my policy forever not to discuss any cases that I’m active in,” Strongin said from his office in the nation’s capital. He returned a phone call seeking comment only after talking with both Kaiser officials and the USWA.

The five-member panel will debate the issues Aug. 21-25.

Kaiser CEO Ray Milchovich and attorney R. Theodore Clark will represent Kaiser on the panel. Ron Bloom, assistant to USWA president George Becker and Robert Bratulich, assistant director of USWA District 11, will represent the Steelworkers.

But the final word likely will come from Strongin, the independent party that both sides agreed to in July.

When the panel meetings end, Strongin will have 21 days to complete a binding contract.

He’s well versed in this type of arbitration, in which he and the panel decide for either the company or union position on each issue, then decide on the final contract.

“It’s a highly civilized and businesslike way of resolving labor disputes,” he said.

“It’s common in other countries, but much less common in the United States,” Strongin said of the process. “But I think there is an increase in use in the last few years.”

Strongin has years of experience with labor negotiations. From 1960 to 1963, he was an appellant litigation attorney with the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C. He spent the next 20 years serving as a permanent “impartial umpire” for negotiations between Bethlehem Steel Corp. and the United Steelworkers, as well as Alcoa aluminum and the United Steelworkers, he said.

“I’ve had numerous other permanent arbitration arrangements in the metals and automotive industries,” he said.

Still, he’s no stranger to arbitrations in other industries.

In 1991, Strongin decided that the police department in Washington, D.C., didn’t have authority to investigate its own officers on complaints of excessive force. The department was investigating accusations that officers stuffed a suspect into the trunk of a police car. Strongin determined that investigating complaints was exclusively the responsibility of the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board. His decision brought an end to charges against the officers.

In 1992, Strongin made the final decision in a dispute between TV sportscaster Sonny Jurgensen, a former star Washington Redskins quarterback, and his employer WUSA-TV-9. Strongin decided in favor of the TV station, which matched a contract offer made for Jurgensen by another station.

In 1998, Strongin arbitrated a dispute surrounding the firing of a California University of Pennsylvania professor for sexual harassment. He determined that the claims were unfounded and ordered that the professor be allowed to return to work.

His next case, Kaiser v. USWA, which begins next week in Chicago, will end the dispute that has idled the Steelworkers nearly two years. Strongin said he’s prepared himself by talking with both parties as well as reading newspaper articles.