Kaiser, Mead Union Still At Odds
Workers didn’t expect “hugs and kisses,” but also didn’t expect the treatment some received after settling a strike with Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp., a union official said Friday.
“This is not a wound that’s going to heal quickly. And that’s too bad,” Jerry Miller, president of United Steelworkers of America, Local 329, said of the enmity remaining after the eight-day walkout that ended Feb. 28.
About a half dozen workers at the company’s Tacoma smelter were suspended for actions during the strike and “we’re reviewing, system wide, inappropriate or illegal behavior by pickets,” spokeswoman Susan Ashe said.
Kaiser management is reviewing videotapes of strikers on picket lines outside the five company plants struck by nearly 3,000 union members, she said.
Company officials have not decided whether other employees will face sanctions, she said.
More than 2,000 of the union workers are employed at Kaiser’s Mead and Trentwood plants here. The company’s Tacoma smelter and plants in Gramercy, La., and Heath, Ohio, each employ about 300.
At the Mead smelter, relations between management and labor have been strained, Miller said. He accused management of changing rules of conduct and removing some temporary agreements that were in place before the Feb. 21 walkout.
“It’s like, they’re not vindictive at all, but this is the way it is,” Miller said.
“We didn’t expect to come back under hugs and kisses. They laid down the law. They’re in complete control. They’re going to run it their way. It upset a lot of people.”
Things are running more smoothly at the Trentwood Rolling Mill in the Spokane Valley, said Joe Thorp, president of Steelworkers Local 338.
“Basically, as far as I’m concerned, things are getting back to normal,” Thorp said.
He said he has not heard workers complaining about conditions at Trentwood.
“Sure, there’s a little dissension with 1,100 employees and 300 management people. But 95 percent of them are doing real fine,” he said. “We never did have a real bad relationship with our management.”
Mead workers are upset by revised plant-conduct rules and regulations that went into effect March 1. The changes include cancellation of earlyout agreements that allowed workers to leave before their scheduled shift ended if their work was completed.
The company also said it would evaluate, and possibly eliminate, flextime agreements at Mead.
“We recognize that perhaps we haven’t been managing our business as well as we should have; and that we also need to operate at much higher standards, beginning today,” A. Lamar Nichols, Mead plant engineering and maintenance manager said in a letter to employees issued upon their return to work.
Ashe said she did not know whether the number of union grievances had increased since the strike ended.
“It’s fair to say things are proceeding as normally as possible, given the fact that we’ve had a significant emotional event,” she said. “We need to get about the business of returning to operations as quickly as possible for our customers.”
Ashe said she had no figures on lost production during the strike, when management employees ran the plants in 12-hour shifts. But she said the company was able to ship product, mainly from inventory.
Workers can expect to work overtime shifts to make up lost production, she said.
The union narrowly approved the strike, called over pay and jobsecurity issues, on Feb. 21. They voted Feb. 28 to accept a 47-month contract.
Pay and job-transfer provisions of the tentative agreement reached in January were unchanged in the final contract.
Kaiser Aluminum, based in Oakland, Calif., is owned by Houstonbased Maxxam Inc.
xxxx Coming Sunday Will labor strife affect Mead smelter’s viability in Kaiser’s future plans?