BY JESSE SMITH

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - For the first time in 16 years, the unions struck Kennecott Utah Copper October 16, after two weeks of working day-to-day under an expired contract. The strike only lasted 48 hours, but succeeded in raising the workers' confidence and jarring the company into making an improved offer October 21.

Union members approved a six-year contract October 24, by a vote of 704 to 538. The company won a concession on health insurance imposing a deductible that would rise to $700 per family per year by 2000.

Workers see the six-year agreement as a setback, since past contracts were generally for three years. The final proposal, negotiated after the strike, contained six-year raises ranging from $2.01 to $3.32, with the same percentage for all job classes. This will increase the gap between the lowest and highest wage.

The strike mobilized more than 1,700 union members who walked out on short notice at 3:00 p.m., before the normal end of the shift at Kennecott. The walkout took place at 10 p.m. at the smelter to allow for an orderly shutdown requested by the company.

Management used this time to bring salaried personnel in to learn how to run operations while the workers were still there.

Picket lines were abruptly pulled down the second night and the TV news announced a return to work starting with the next day's afternoon shift.

Kennecott is organized by locals of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), as well as locals of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the International Association of Machinists, the Operating Engineers, the United Transportation Union, and the Office and Professional Employees International Union.

Contracts had expired September 30, after months of negotiations with little result. Following a two-week break, talks had resumed October 15.

The workers had passed strike authorization votes, but it was the joint union bargaining committee that called the strike and then called it off.

The bargaining committee, after polling the union members, had made wages, pensions, and insurance the main issues. A large portion of the workers are close to retirement age. Many already have more than 30 years of service but can't afford to retire on Kennecott's meager pension.

During the 16 years without a strike, the unions were weakened and workers lost ground at Kennecott. They were laid off for up to two years during the mid-80s slump in copper prices, and severe concessions were extorted when they came back. Wages have never recovered, and such key gains as sick pay and cost-of-living raises were lost.

In my local the standard refrain of union officers, repeated by many workers, was "You can't strike any more. They'll just replace you. We'd lose everything." Many workers are deep in debt and felt somewhat nervous as word of the strike spread. But when the time came, all the workers - including some who had never officially joined the union - walked out.

No more than a handful crossed picket lines in the entire operation. Hundreds of workers flocked to union meetings each afternoon and staffed the picket lines around the clock at all gates.

On those lines, morale was higher than it had been in the plant. Workers from the different unions picketed together. They turned away Teamster-organized drivers and unionized contractors, and waved back at the stream of passing cars that honked their horns. A union officer representing bakery workers brought us donuts.

Kennecott attempted to run parts of its operation with foremen and other salaried employees. They brought in private security squads and announced plans to bus in strikebreakers.

When strikers first returned to work, the company attempted to force some of them to work alongside bosses and show them how to do their jobs. Provisions of the expired local contracts that governed work rules were torn up by the company. In Kennecott's rush to restart production, there was a poison gas exposure at the refinery that sent several workers to the hospital.

Workers have voiced frustration because they weren't calling the shots, and the secrecy of negotiations left union members in the dark. The unionists are stronger, however, for breaking the myth that "you can't go on strike any more."

Jesse Smith is a member of USWA Local 392 at Kennecott in Salt Lake County.  
 
 
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