Kaiser decision due on Monday

Arbitrator's contract ruling ends two-year labor dispute

Karen Dorn Steele - Staff writer

The long Kaiser and Steelworkers labor dispute is nearly over, although locked-out Steelworkers may not return to work until October.

Sunday evening, the Steelworkers will disperse their last picket line at Kaiser Aluminum's Trentwood rolling mill.

"We're shutting it down," Dave Carlson, vice president of the union's Local 338, said from the Trentwood union hall on Friday.

Early Monday morning near the end of the graveyard shift, picketing also will end at Kaiser's Mead smelter.

The pickets will disappear because Monday is the deadline for binding arbitration designed to end the two-year strike and lockout.

Arbitrator Seymour Strongin of Washington, D.C., will announce his final decision Monday on a new Kaiser contract, which both sides have agreed to honor.

Because the Steelworkers voted in July to accept binding arbitration, no further union vote is necessary to ratify the new contract, Carlson said.

Kaiser has 35 days from Monday to bring the Steelworkers back to work, said Kaiser spokesman Scott Lamb in Houston.

Union workers have 14 days after company notification to say whether they're coming back.

The labor dispute began Sept. 30, 1998, idling 2,900 Steelworkers at five Kaiser plants, including more than 2,000 at Mead and Trentwood. The other plants are at Tacoma, Newark, Ohio, and Gramercy, La. The strike became a lockout on Jan. 14, 1999.