Kaiser Workers Camp Out At Capitol Locked-Out Steelworkers Seek More Jobless Benefits

Locked-out Kaiser Aluminum workers rolled back into the Capitol on Monday with bedrolls under their arms and plans to camp on the marble steps until lawmakers extended their unemployment benefits - or leave town for the year.

An hour after lawmakers adjourned for the day to let budget negotiators continue hammering out a response to Initiative 695’s car tax cut, a few dozen Steelworkers chomped on pizza, making plans to call the Capitol home for a few days or a few weeks.

They were expected to be joined by another busload of Spokane Steelworkers, and an unknown number of state employees, all of whom planned to make the Rotunda their home.

“You just have to behave yourself,” said Mead worker Steven Peak. “You don’t carve your initials into the wood or deface the statues, that sort of thing.”

The labor force has been a vocal presence at the Capitol since last week, when co-House Speaker Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee, used a procedural move to quash a bill that would have extended their benefits. Most Kaiser workers, who walked off the job in September 1998 only to be locked out last year, saw their unemployment checks dry up last summer.

State employees were on hand because Ballard used the same move to kill a Democrat-led civil service reform package, which included new bargaining rights for state workers.

Although Gov. Gary Locke has put both issues back on the agenda for the special legislative session that began Friday, labor lobbyist Robert Stern conceded he was not hopeful the union members’ message would make a difference. For the bills to pass, either Ballard would have to change his mind, co-House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, would have to wage a fight over the rules Ballard used to block the measures, or a Republican lawmaker would have to roll over and give Democrats enough votes to elect a single Democratic speaker.

“And anybody who did that would definitely be punished” by party leadership, Stern said.

Still, Steelworkers had no plans to call it quits.

“It’s a righteous fight,” said Abe Adams, who worked at Kaiser’s Tacoma plant. “If we don’t fight, we don’t have a right to expect anyone else to fight for us.”

Meanwhile, Kaiser Aluminum and the United Steelworkers met Monday in Houston to continue negotiations on a labor contract in a dispute that has left 2,900 Steelworkers from five plants off their jobs for 17 months.

Neither side in Houston commented on the talks Monday. The company and the union are scheduled to continue meeting the next two days.

Staff writer Hannelore Sudermann contributed to this report.