BY LAURA GARZA AND PHIL DUZINSKI
GRAMERCY, Louisiana - Workers picketing the Kaiser Aluminum
plant here show determination to fight against the bosses'
union-busting proposals as a strike by members of the United
Steelworkers of America (USWA) enters its fourth month. Some
3,000 workers are on strike nationwide against Kaiser, about
350 in Gramercy and the others in Ohio and Washington State.
These reporters visited the picket line December 28 and found
spirits high, despite word that the most recent contract
proposal by the company is even worse than the last offer made
on September 30, and includes different conditions for each
local area.
Sam Thomas, grievance committee chairman of USWA Local 5702, said they had just received the phone book-sized document detailing some of the takebacks the company is demanding, and were in the process of analyzing it.
Thomas characterized the company's latest offer as "definitely worse and a step backward. This is more evidence the company is not making a true effort to bargain in good faith."
One of the demands, in the name of increasing productivity, would raise the number of jobs to be eliminated at the Gramercy facility though outsourcing and job combinations from 60 to 65.
Another is changing overtime pay from receiving time-and-a- half after eight hours worked in a day to premium pay only after 40 hours in a week. The proposal would allow arbitrary changes in the start time and duration of the workweek.
The company also proposes to gut seniority with its demand that job placement in bidding be based on so-called "readiness skills," a proposal many workers say is one of the most dangerous. As well, each worker would have to requalify annually in order to keep his or her job assignment, with failure to do so leading to termination.
The plant dominates the two bordering towns of Gramercy and Lutcher, whose combined population is about 7,000. The other major employer in the area is the Colonial sugar mill, situated next to the Kaiser plant, both along the banks of the Mississippi River. Most of the product sent out of the Gramercy plant is shipped up the river in barges. There is a steady stream of honks from cars and trucks, as drivers passing by show their solidarity with the strikers.
The company is using the union-busting outfit Vance Security in an attempt to intimidate strikers. These thugs videotape the picket line and have set up microphones to pick up strikers' conversations.
Kaiser is also using a contracting outfit named Harmony to hire scabs, with people coming from other states as well as nearby towns in Texas and Louisiana. While there has been a big turnover, strikers reported, Kaiser is currently running the plant with 280 workers, down from the high of 600 at the beginning of the strike. The company has made claims that productivity is around 80 percent. But according to striking maintenance worker Paul Deroche, "they are having problems with quality. We've heard that product has been rejected by some customers."
Despite a recent unfavorable injunction against the union, pickets continue around the clock. Louisiana law permits pickets to block traffic going in and out of a plant being struck. Until this injunction the strikers were operating under a ruling from the 1993-96 Bayou Steel strike that restricted the time permitted to delay traffic to 90 seconds. The latest injunction cuts this time in half and limits to one the number of pickets permitted to actually walk in front of and delay each vehicle.
As was the case under the 90-second rule, the strikers are using the allowed 45 seconds to create a disciplined, serious presence in the face of company attempts to run production unimpeded. The strikers have also been forced back to the edge of the road where the plant entrance is, reversing a previous setup where the company had agreed to the sheriff's request to move its fence some yards back, allowing pickets to stand a safer distance from traffic along the major thoroughfare.
Many strikers are working other jobs to cover bills while the fight goes on, including working turnaround jobs in local refineries. Strikers and their families are especially affected by the loss of medical coverage, which was provided at no extra cost under the old contract. To maintain their coverage, many are paying between $300 and $400 a month.
The conditions Kaiser would like to impose are familiar to members of the striking local because some of the workers in their local have faced the same takebacks from another company. Kaiser sold the chemical and coker units of the Gramercy plant, with about 175 and 30 workers respectively, to the chemical company La Roche in 1988. The coker was subsequently sold to a company called CII Carbon. There was a fight over the contract for the coker unit. USWA members had been working under the company's final offer when they were locked out, accused of sabotage by the company. The company fired three workers they claimed were responsible for the so-called sabotage. A grand jury was convened to consider charges against the three workers but declined to indict anyone.
The union filed and won a ruling against the lockout by the National Labor Relations Board, which the company appealed. The appeal is scheduled to be heard in the coming months. In the meantime the company was forced to allow workers to return to the plant last summer, except for the three they fired, and they have since been working under the newly implemented terms. Wayne Stafford, president of Local 5702, explained these include a form of "the skill block program," which means the company awards jobs on the basis of "skill" instead of seniority.
Strikers are closely following similar labor battles. Literature about the Steelworkers on strike against Titan Tire in Des Moines, Iowa, and Natchez, Mississippi, is spread around the union hall.
In addition, 400 USWA members are on strike against Southwire in Hawesville, Kentucky, one of Kaiser-Gramercy's biggest customers. The workers have been on strike since June 26, 1998, in an effort to win a union contract, which would be the first one at a Southwire plant if they succeed. The workers won a union election vote in 1997. The strike was called to protest unfair labor practices, including attempts to push people to quit the union. They are also fighting to get a union contract, for a retirement plan, vacation time that was taken away in the past, and other benefits.
Phil Duzinski and Laura Garza are members of the International Association of Machinists in Houston.