The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.38           October 26, 1998 
 
 
Striker: `I'd Lose Everything Before Crossing The Line' At Kaiser Aluminum  

BY CHRIS RAYSON
SPOKANE, Washington - "We poured our guts out in the mills, and they [Kaiser Aluminum Co.] care nothing about us. My wife and I would lose everything we have before we'd cross the line." These comments by Ken Steeley, 32, who has worked 10 years at Kaiser's Trentwood rolling mill, typify the determination of the 3,000 members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) on strike against Kaiser.

The strike is centered here, where 2,000 members of USWA Local 329 at the Mead smelter and Local 338 at the Trentwood rolling mill are on the picket lines. Workers at Kaiser Aluminum plants in Tacoma, Washington; Newark, Ohio; and Gramercy, Louisiana, are also on strike.

Union strike literature points out "Kaiser has spent more the $8 million preparing for its strike - hiring strikebreakers and paramilitary `security guards,' building fences, erecting trailers, and paying lawyers and consultants."

The walk out began September 30 when workers rejected the company's contract offer, which is below the standard in the aluminum industry. The company is demanding the permanent elimination of 400 jobs between the five plants, as well as the contracting out of 150 jobs. Over the course of Kaiser's proposed five-year agreement, wages would increase a miserly 2.3 percent per year. Proposed pension increases would also keep Kaiser retirees below those at other major aluminum companies.

The USWA is charging Kaiser with numerous unfair labor practices that made reaching an agreement through negotiations impossible. This includes Kaiser making its contract offer contingent on the union not striking. In 1983 the USWA agreed to release Kaiser from its coordinated agreement with the "Big 3" aluminum companies - Alcoa, Reynolds, and Kaiser. Kaiser received wage and benefit concessions worth hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as what the USWA describes as "what amounted to a long-term, interest-free loan by accepting shares of the company's preferred stock instead of a portion of our wages."

As Kaiser regained profitability - earning $168 million in 1997 - it broke its promise to restore workers to industry standards. Instead, the bosses demanded more concessions.

A nine-day strike in 1995 did nothing to resolve workers' demands for parity with aluminum workers at other companies. Dan Russell, a crane operator at Mead and President of USWA Local 329, explained that Kaiser started preparing for a showdown with the union from the day the last strike ended in 1995. The first day back, Russell said, the company made a speech saying, "We own you for eight hours." That's "quite an attitude after a strike," Russell noted.

Kaiser recently hired International Management Assistance Corp. (IMAC) to hire, train, house, and feed a scab workforce for its plants in Spokane and Tacoma. IMAC brags that it provides companies with "Total Strike Services."

Wes Beck, president of USWA Local 338 at Trentwood, estimates that "200 or 300 scabs" have been brought in by Kaiser. Living facilities were trucked in and set up on company property.

School buses with the windows covered periodically go through the gates at both Mead and Trentwood. In addition to the driver, an IMAC security guard rides in front with a video camera. Many strikers are skeptical that all these buses contain scabs, saying the company hopes the bus movement will demoralize the strikers.

Two days after the strike began, four workers filed a suit against Kaiser Aluminum, IMAC, and Construction Workforce Inc. (CWI) for assault, outrage and unlawful imprisonment. CWI is a subsidiary of IMAC, created to do business in Washington state. According to the October 3 Spokesman-Review Daniel Doughty, Jennifer Blanchard, Mary Knudsen and Todd Halvorsen, all from Cowlitz County in southwestern Washington, said they responded to a newspaper ad from CWI promising $1,400 to $4,000 a week in wages but were not told until they reached Spokane that they would be crossing a picket line.

Oliver Staley of The Spokesman-Review reports, "...the workers claim they were told by CWI employees to stay in their rooms until morning or they would have to leave immediately and pay for their transportation home."

During the night the workers claim they were again threatened when they reported their room phones were blocked. The two women, Staley reports, "said they were grabbed and shaken when they left the room to call their children."

Chris Rayson is a member of the United Transportation Union.

*****
BY TONY PRINCE

NEWARK, Ohio - Bill Vandiver, a maintenance worker and member of USWA Local 341 on the picket line at the Kaiser Aluminum plant here, described the main issues in the strike as, "union seniority and security. We also want a clause in the contract maintaining the union if the company is sold."

Gary Sykes, the president of Local 341, which has about 230 members, gave some background on the issues of the strike. In the early to mid-1980s, USWA members gave concessions that resulted in job losses and lower pay and benefits. Only now, in 1998, have wages risen to the 1985 level. When inflation is taken into account, the workers make much less than in 1985. The 1992 contract combined more jobs and work practices. In the face of further company demands for concessions, the union struck briefly in 1995 and now again in 1998.

The ranks of the union are solidly behind the strike. Butch Davis, a casting operator with almost 25 years at Kaiser, said, "Before we went out we had only three people who took a salaried job. No one that we know of has crossed the line."

It was obvious that the company was pushing for a fight. Casting operator Jeff Casey said, "Before the strike began, at 5:20 p.m. last Wednesday [September 30], the company brought in two busloads of scabs from Cleveland and Detroit onto the property. Our strike didn't begin until 7:00 p.m."

"Management brought us into a meeting room last Wednesday showing us old safety films all night," added maintenance worker Greg Ritchie. "They didn't want us out there on the floor."

Kaiser has brought in the notorious strikebreaking firm of Vance Security to escort the scabs and keep the operation running. Several Vance thugs dressed in combat gear stood about 30 yards away from the strikers' picket shack.

Davis reflected the confidence of the workers on the picket line. "Labor's been down for a long time," he said, "but someday we're going to get big."

Tony Prince is a member of USWA Local 188.  
 
 
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