Aluminum Jobs Due to Be Cut

Published in the Herald-Republic on Thursday, November 2, 2000
By MIKE BARENTI

YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

The rising price of electricity will cost 158 employees their jobs at aluminum plants near Goldendale and The Dalles, Ore.

Managers hope workers already contemplating retirement or leaving for other jobs will take advantage of a company package and voluntarily leave so forced layoffs can be avoided, said Mac Seyhanli, chief operating officer for Golden Northwest Aluminum, which owns the two plants. "We want to try that first," he said.

The company, which employs 1,225 at the two plants, is offering workers $3,000 plus $1,000 for every year worked along with a year of paid health insurance if they leave voluntarily. There's been interest in the offer from workers, Seyhanli said.

But if 93 people from Goldendale and 65 from The Dalles don't take up the company on the offer in the next week or so, there will be layoffs, he said.

The company is also consolidating management of the two plants, which had operated separately.

The plants have to operate more efficiently to stay open, Seyhanli said. By combining operations, redundancy in areas like spare parts for equipment should be reduced, he said

"Instead of individually fighting, we're trying to get these two companies together," Seyhanli said.

In late September the company announced it was cutting production at the two plants by 40 percent because of rising electricity prices. Golden Northwest, like other aluminum operations in the region, buys a portion of its electricity from the federal Bonneville Power Administration and the rest on the open market. Increases in prices on the open market electricity have forced several aluminum plants around the region to close and Golden Northwest to drop production.

The production cutbacks will last two years. Golden Northwest expects a private gas-turbine electric plant planned for Goldendale to be on line by then to provide low-price electricity for the plants.

But that's not soon enough to save the Golden Northwest operations, Seyhanli said.

The current cutbacks at the Goldendale plant will hurt the area, said Goldendale Mayor Mark Sigfrinius. Even if the 93 people leave their jobs voluntarily, it is still the loss of 93 good-paying jobs for the community, he said.

"I think businesses are going to feel the difference," Sigfrinius said. If the plants close, things will be even worse for Goldendale and Klickitat County. One study estimated the county unemployment rate would rise by 30 percent if the plants close, he said.

The city is working with National Energy Systems Co. of Kirkland to build a 248-megawatt gas-turbine electric plant, Sigfrinius said. Building the plant is contingent on the state issuing environmental permits, he said. But there's no time frame for that, although the city thinks it might happen by the end of the year, he said.

The state also wants to see the Goldendale aluminum plant stay open, said Dave Danner, a policy analyst for Gov. Gary Locke. The Goldendale aluminum plant provides 14 percent of the jobs and 20 percent of the tax base for Klickitat County, he said.

The planned electric plant would help, and the state is trying to get BPA to buy any unused electricity generated there, Danner said. That would make the new electric facility more practical, he said.

Without the new power plant, Sigfrinius doubts the aluminum plants will stay open.

"This is one of those make-it-or-break-it things," he said. "It's the ticket to the opera."