This was the latest in a month of actions members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) have taken to demand the state pass legislation extending unemployment benefits to them for an additional 30 weeks. The benefits would be issued if the lockout continued and Kaiser would have to pay the entire cost, more than $20 million. The steelworkers have been on strike or locked out for 18 months.

The legislation passed the state Senate but the House leadership has refused to allow a vote. The House is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats and the two co-speakers must both agree to bring in a vote. The Republican co-speaker has refused to do so and the Democratic one says it would be "perceived as unfair" to "change the rules." Supporters of the benefits insist there are enough votes to pass it.

Buck McGowan, 53, a USWA road warrior since June 1999 and mobile equipment operator at the Tacoma Kaiser plant near here, told the Militant, "I'm here to support steelworkers and show what solidarity is. We're asking for something we deserve. The extra money comes from Kaiser, not from state funds."

A week earlier, 350 steelworkers and their supporters rallied on the capitol steps with broad support from area unions. Steelworkers and their supporters have also organized sit-ins overnight at the state capitol demanding passage of the unemployment benefits.

David Foster, a district director of the USWA in charge of negotiations with Kaiser, told steelworkers at the March 27 rally that "Kaiser is saying 'don't help the USWA because we will bargain a settlement in four to five weeks.' If we were four to five weeks away," Foster added, "why did Kaiser cut off 300 of our most vulnerable workers from Cobra they are paying themselves?" Cobra is an expensive insurance program used by workers to maintain medical benefits when the employer ceases payments.

A week earlier, Steelworker officials canceled plans for a weekend of protests and demonstrations March 25–27 at Kaiser's aluminum refinery near Tacoma.

The canceled actions had been planned by USWA officials in coalition with several groups that had led the civil disobedience in protectionist protests during the World Trade Organization's (WTO) ministerial meeting in Seattle last December. David Solnit, of the Direct Action Network, said that the Tacoma protests were to help prepare and to practice for protests against upcoming World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings. According to the March 22 Seattle Times, the coalition "intended to use nonviolent tactics learned for WTO."

In this context, there was a likelihood the workers' action would face an unnecessary confrontation with the police that would have resulted in a setback for labor's struggle against Kaiser's lockout.

Sensing an opportunity to possibly victimize the picketing strikers and their supporters, Tacoma, county, and state authorities mobilized a massive show of police force around the Kaiser plant gate and throughout the area that weekend. Even though the actions were called off, Washington State Patrol troopers, Pierce County sheriff's deputies, and King County sheriff's officers joined Tacoma police on behalf of Kaiser. SWAT teams and other police departments were standing by. School officials in Fife, a city just north of Tacoma where the Kaiser plant is located, closed schools March 27, falsely citing concerns for students' safety. That day's Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported police made two arrests during the weekend, when a small number of protesters came to the Steelworker picket lines there.

Chris Rayson is a member of the United Transportation Union.  
 
 
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