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Steelworkers Charge Kaiser Aluminum With Violations of Federal Labor Law OAKLAND, CA, October 14 - The United Steelworkers of America today filed unfair labor practices charges against Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. for the company's unlawful activities during negotiations for a new master labor agreement at five of Kaiser's plants in the United States. The charges, filed this morning at the National Labor Relations Board office here, allege that Kaiser "has discriminated in regard to terms and conditions of employment to discourage membership in a labor organization; has refused to bargain collectively in good faith with the representative of its employees (including but not limited to refusing to provide requested information relevant and necessary to collective bargaining negotiations); and has otherwise interfered with, restrained, and/or coerced employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act." "From day one of these negotiations, Kaiser refused to recognize that stable, long-term, family-supporting jobs are vital to our members, our families and our communities," said David Foster, Director of USWA District 11 and chairman of the USWA Kaiser Aluminum bargaining team. "Instead, they committed a series of unfair labor practices-violations of federal law-that made bargaining and reaching an agreement impossible." On September 30, more than 3,000 USWA members at five Kaiser plants went on strike several hours after their contract expired to protest the company's unfair labor practices. Steelworkers members at Kaiser are bargaining for improved job security provisions, "successorship" protection that would protect their jobs and labor standards in the event of a plant sale or relocation, and restoration of wage, benefit and pension levels to the industry standard set in the union's contracts with Alcoa and Reynolds. "Our members sacrificed for 15 years to restore Kaiser's profitability after leveraged buyouts and other corporate misadventures saddled the company with a billion dollars of debt," Foster said. "In the wake of a 'best ever' performance that earned Kaiser over $168 million last year, it's not unreasonable to ask the company to honor its word and restore the cuts our membership accepted to put the company back on its feet." The company's latest contract offer would eliminate at least 400 jobs, give the company the right to contract out hundreds of other jobs, and guarantee the slow decline of USWA members' living standards with an economic offer below the projected rate of inflation. This is the second set of charges filed in recent weeks against Kaiser in the NLRB region which contains the company's headquarters city. In early September, the union challenged the legality of Kaiser's unilateral withdrawal of recognition and refusal to bargain with a unit comprised of the company's guards. On all charges, the NLRB regional office is expected to conduct an investigation prior to making a decision on whether to issue a complaint against the company. The strike affects workers at two Kaiser plants in Spokane, Washington, as well as plants in Newark, Ohio, Gramercy, Louisiana, and Tacoma, Washington. The 750,000-member USWA also has separate agreements covering workers at Kaiser plants in Richmond, Virginia, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and London, Ontario.
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