Steelworkers are feeling a bit powerless
Local Kaiser workers wonder if shutdown is beginning of end
John Stucke - Staff writer
Steelworkers are dismayed that aluminum companies across the Northwest may have to keep their smelters idled until late 2003 as part of an effort to ease the regional power crunch.
Making aluminum is a good-paying, blue-collar livelihood for more than 5,000 people across the region. With a two-year shutdown looming, members of the United Steelworkers of America are worried the jobs may never return.
"It is very difficult for any business to be sidelined for two years," said David Foster, the union's District 11 director. "If demand is filled by smelters in other parts of the world, we may never have a viable aluminum industry in the Northwest again."
Most of the companies operating the Northwest's 10 aluminum smelters switched off production during the past year to sell power. Those shutdowns were to end in October, when new contracts between the companies and the Bonneville Power Administration take hold.
However, BPA announced Monday that the power predicament isn't about to end anytime soon. That means the 1,500 megawatts BPA stands to supply to aluminum companies will be so pricey that the smelters will lose a lot of money if they buy it.
For Kaiser Aluminum Corp.'s crew, the latest development is another piece of bad news.
"I see guys every day that are resigned to the fact that Kaiser is done here," said Dan Russell, president of Steelworkers Local No. 329. "A good number of them are just getting on with their lives ... washing their hands of the whole thing."
The Steelworkers ended a nearly two-year labor dispute with Kaiser last fall, only to return to an industry set on a collision course with the power problem.
If aluminum companies choose to keep smelters idled for the next couple of years, BPA has said it stands ready to negotiate a payment plan for laid-off workers.
Kaiser may be the exception to such a plan, however, because the company and BPA haven't reached agreement on the use of about $400 million in proceeds Kaiser netted from the sale of federal power.
The company contends it has done nothing wrong, and it is upset with the notion of BPA perhaps cutting its Mead and Tacoma work force out of any payment provision.
Russell said he partly agrees with BPA's position -- namely that Kaiser should use its profits from the resale of federal power this year to fully pay laid-off Steelworkers.