L’Observateur / August 15, 2000

GRAMERCY – Negotiations on settling the 22-month-old strike by union steelworkers at Kaiser Aluminum ended last week without a settlement.

Final contract offers are being exchanged today. The remaining issues will besubmitted Aug. 21 to Interest Arbitrator Seymour Strongin in Chicago forresolution.

Hearings on those remaining issues are set for Aug. 21-25, with a ruling bymid-September.

The company and the union agreed June 29 to hold final negotiations and, if unsuccessful, arbitration to end the strike by the end of September, the second anniversary of the beginning of the labor dispute.

USWA members began their walkout Sept. 30, 1998 in response to thecompany’s substandard contract offer. They offered to return to work onJan. 13, 1999, but on the following day the company locked out thesteelworkers at their five plants in Gramercy, Newark, Ohio and Tacoma and Spokane, Wash.

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