PAGE 8 | July 19, 2019 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
...Cascade Steel Mills: Ready to strike
From Page 1
Who’s on our side?
By Tom Chamberlain Oregon AFL-CIO President
pay 30% of the premium. In
other words, Schnitzer is asking
its union steel mill workers to
lower their benefits until they
match the company’s non-union
scrap yard workers.
But the jobs are pretty differ-
ent, says Local 8378 President
Jim Blue.
“We work in a pretty harsh
environment,” Blue said. “Some
of the bag house dust is pretty
toxic. There’s high heat. There’s
some lead exposure. None of
that’s really compatible with the
human body.”
Schnitzer Steel is self-in-
sured. Premiums for its Blue
Cross Blue Shield plan are
about $600 a month for em-
ployee-only coverage and
$1,700 a month for family cov-
erage. Under the company’s lat-
est proposal, a worker who now
pays the equivalent of $2,400 a
year in premiums for family
coverage could expect to pay
$4,950 a year in three years,
given medical cost inflation of
5%.
Schnitzer also wants to slash
dental coverage: The current
plan pays for up to $2,500 a year
in dental work, and the new plan
would only cover up to $1,750.
“It’s like they think we’re all
stupid, and we don’t know how
to use a calculator,” Davis told
the Labor Press.
The union insisted on open
negotiations this time, so that
rank-and-file union members
could come and watch the nego-
tiations. Some are showing up
regularly, and telling co-workers
what they’re seeing.
“Everybody’s pissed,” Davis
said. “That’s the nicest way I
could put it.”
Roughly four out of five
workers at the steel mill took
part in a June 26 strike vote,
with many coming in on their
day off to cast their ballot, and
the result was 97% approval to
authorize the union bargaining
committee to call a strike. Work-
ers last struck at the mill in
2012, and came back to work
after 12 days with the company
making concessions, including
a wage offer that increased from
0.5% to as high as 2.5%.
Union negotiators this time
have so far rejected concessions
and are calling instead for im-
provements: Besides 4% annual
raises, the union is proposing to
make Veterans Day a paid holi-
day for veterans, and to lengthen
paid bereavement leave to five
Fixing the gap
at Fred Meyer
SCRAP TO CONSTRUCTION:
WHAT THEY DO AT CASCADE STEEL ROLLING MILLS
Based in Portland, Schnitzer Steel is the fifth-largest publicly-traded
company in Oregon, worth $670 million on the North American
Stock Exchange (NASDAQ.) Schnitzer makes most of its money from
its network of 96 auto and metals recycling facilities around the
United States, which includes the 52-location “Pick-n-Pull” chain
where customers buy used parts off scrapped cars. But McMinnville-
based Cascade Steel Rolling Mills, which Schnitzer Steel has owned
since 1984, is the jewel of its empire. Along with a distribution center
near Los Angeles, the two units make up Schnitzer’s Cascade Steel
and Scrap division, which generates 20% of the company’s revenue.
At the McMinnville steel mill complex, located on a 85-acre site off
Route 99, members of United Steelworkers Local 8378 turn scrap into
building materials. It’s a 24-7 operation: Steelworkers put in four days
in a row of 12-hour shifts, followed by four days off. At the mill, pow-
ered by cheap electricity from publicly-owned Bonneville Power Ad-
ministration, an electric arc furnace and ladle refining furnace melt
and refine ferrous materials brought in from Schnitzer’s scrap yards.
Molten steel then goes through a five-strand continuous billet caster,
which turns out solid metal blocks. Those are then reheated in a nat-
ural-gas-fueled furnace and hot-rolled in a computerized rolling mill
to create rebar, wire rod (used in chain link fence, nails, wire, and
stucco netting), and merchant rod (rounds and square steel bars that
are used to produce bolts, threaded bars and dowel bars).
days, up from the current three.
Workers are entitled to take the
bereavement leave in the event
of the death of a spouse or child.
The most recent collective
bargaining agreement expired
April 1, but Local 8378 agreed
to extend its terms while nego-
tiations continued. That exten-
sion expires July 31, after which
workers could shut down the
mill and walk off the job.
The two sides are scheduled
to meet July 29, 30, and 31 with
the help of a federal mediator.
“Our guys work for their
money,” says Blue, the union
president. “We’ve made these
people a lot of money. We’re not
asking to break them. We just
feel with all the concessions
we’ve made in previous con-
tracts, they can treat us more
fairly this time.”
A recent story in the Northwest Labor Press described how
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 555
is taking the glass ceiling head-on in contract negotiations.
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research tells us that
not only do women make up more than half of the Ameri-
can workforce, but they are also the sole wage-earner in
half of families with children. Women earn more advance
degrees in education than men, yet in 2017, women work-
ing year-round earned 80.5 cents for every dollar earned
by men.
This wage disparity is a reality in Kroger-owned Fred
Meyer stores. Fred Meyer stores operates with two wage
schedules. One schedule pays an average of $3.70/hour
higher than the other schedule. While less than half of all
Fred Meyer employees are men, 67% of employees on the
highest paid schedule are men. This means that women are
disproportionately placed on the lowest-paying wage scale.
There is no reasonable explanation for this disparity. These
types of disparities create divisions within the workforce
and are part of an overall corporate strategy to undermine
the strength of our members to gather and collectively bar-
gain with unity.
A recent article in the New York Times blatantly stated
that the U.S. women’s soccer team, who just won the
World Cup, is not entitled to greater wages because they
have a smaller fan base, less television viewers, and other-
wise do not bring in as much overall income as male soccer
teams and matches. The first women’s World Cup was held
in 1991. The men’s first World Cup was in 1930! It is just
this type of reasoning that continues to depress and subju-
gate women’s wages and advancements in the workplace.
Fred Meyer isn’t the same grocery chain that my parents
shopped at. It was locally-owned and was interwoven into
our communities. Freddy’s had the reputation of an em-
ployer who took care of its workers. Sadly, that is not the
case today. Since the sale to Kroger in 1998, Fred Meyer
is different. The close interconnection with the community
is gone. No longer does Fred Meyer have a reputation of
taking care of its workers. The focus is totally centered on
profitability with a corresponding impact to its workforce.
Kroger is ignoring the fact that women Fred Meyer work-
ers on average earn 25% less than their male co-workers.
As Oregonians and as unionists, we must take a hard
and fast stand against all forms of gender discrimination.
We know from experience that unity is our strength. We
know from experience that this issue will only be fixed if
we all go to bat for a change in culture and a reality change
in wages for work. Equal work — equal pay.
Over the coming weeks and months, the Oregon AFL-
CIO will educate Oregonians on this wage disparity at Fred
Meyer.
Please join us by visiting www.FixTheGapOregon.com
to learn more and take action.
If Fred Meyer continues its practice of discriminating
against women, then vote with your wallet and shop some-
where else. As a community, let’s send a clear message:
“Fix the gap. Equal work for equal pay.”
The Oregon AFL-CIO is a 138,000-member-strong federation of labor unions.