Negotiation Best For Kaiser, Union

Starting Wednesday, local members of the Steelworkers union will vote on whether to accept a process by which the long impasse with Kaiser Aluminum would come to an end.

Kaiser and union leaders reached agreement on this possible breakthrough after nearly two years of agonizing negotiations.

If the union agrees to the process, Kaiser and union leaders would have until the end of July to agree to a new contract. If that deadline isn’t met, an arbitration panel would decide the remaining sticking points by the end of September.

The type of arbitration agreed upon could be painful. The parties are far apart on several major issues. If the panel were to rule heavily in favor of one side, the other side could be dealt a devastating, yet binding, setback.

We hope a compromise can be reached or that differences can be narrowed before the arbitration deadline, because “winner take all” would be a Pyrrhic victory for either side. However, the draconian hammer of “baseball style” arbitration is probably the only way to shake loose a resolution.

The only option is to return to negotiations that have thus far produced nothing but pain for Kaiser, the work force and the Inland Northwest.

Locked-out workers have been without unemployment benefits for 10 months. Many have given up and started new careers, most at greatly reduced wages. The rest are scraping by, buoyed by checks from the union. But those funds are not infinite.

The conflict between replacement workers and union members has driven a wedge between families and friends.

It has been a depressing, ugly saga.

Union leaders are correct in trying to draft the final chapter via compromise, even though that could mean the loss of more than 300 jobs at the Trentwood plant.

On the other side, Kaiser still must defend itself against a National Labor Relations Board charge that it acted illegally in locking out Steelworkers.

Plus, its image in the region has been forever changed. “Internationally known, locally grown” is a company motto that has been rendered quaint.

This is no longer the company Spokane contractor Henry Kaiser purchased in 1946 and transformed into an economic giant, eventually employing 90,000 workers around the country.

Today, the levers of power are pulled in faraway Houston, and shareholders around the world are a major consideration.

The landscape has changed dramatically, and both sides have been bloodied. It is time to bind up the wounds and move on.