Addy workers to get help
John Stucke - Staff writer
Federal help will arrive in Stevens County for workers who are losing their jobs at Northwest Alloys Inc.
The U.S. Department of Labor decided Tuesday that foreign competition is to blame for the magnesium smelter shutdown. So the government will help fund retraining efforts that include college enrollment, along with extending unemployment benefits to the more than 300 workers who will be laid off.
Industrial giant Alcoa Inc. announced in June that the smelter in Addy would be closed. Northwest Alloys is the company's only magnesium producer in North America.
There's a metal glut, Alcoa reasoned, making it cheaper to buy magnesium from foreign suppliers than make it in northeast Washington.
While the shutdown decision makes financial sense for Alcoa, it's a financial blow to the rural region. Northwest Alloys is the largest private employer and taxpayer in economically struggling Stevens County.
"We've offered what we can," said Ozzie Wilkinson, a company spokesman. "Now this gives our work force an excellent program that ... provides money for things like tuition, books and other expenses, and some extended unemployment benefits."
The program is a feature of the Trade Act of 1974 that provides assistance to workers displaced by foreign competition.
Part of the problem at Northwest Alloys, however, was production costs. The smelter uses an outdated process that depends on expensive raw materials to make magnesium.
Plants in other countries, especially China, Russia and Israel, use a cheaper electricity-intensive process to make magnesium.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who visited the Addy plant Aug. 6, said Tuesday she was thrilled to hear the assistance was approved. She had contacted officials at the Labor Department immediately after the plant visit to check on the aid application.
Through the Trade Act, workers will be eligible for money to help pay the costs of relocation and for grants for retraining programs.
"It'll mean dollars for training and education for a very talented work force," Cantwell said. "It gives people more certainty moving forward into the fall about the amount that they will qualify for."
About 90 percent of the workers have six to seven weeks of work left. The smelter will employ a skeleton crew of about 25 by the end of the year.
"Most won't come to work on Oct. 1," Wilkinson said Tuesday. "The significance of the Trade Act is it allows some earlier planning on the part of employees."