Common ground at 180 feet in the air

Summer 1999
Volume 106 - No.2

By David Foster
District #11 Director, United Steelworkers of America

United Steelworkers of America District #11 Director David Foster and environmental activist Julia Hill

Over the last two decades, the labor and environmental movements have frequently clashed. But today, originating from the northern California's redwood protests and the picket lines of Kaiser Aluminum's Pacific Northwest smelters, a new alliance has emerged with a vision of ecological and economic justice.

Two weeks ago, hand over hand, I struggled to pull myself 180 feet up the trunk of America's most famous redwood to meet Julia Hill, environmental activist and organizer who, for the last 14 months, has lived alone atop the 1,000 year-old tree.

What was I -the 51-year-old District #11 Director of the United Steelworkers' union, a resident of Minneapolis - doing in this extraordinary spot?

There are reasons for all of us to examine the grim legacy of America's cowboy economy of the 1990s. But for the 3,000 families locked out by Kaiser Aluminum, there are plenty of reasons to wonder about the ruination of this once proud company.

Kaiser Aluminum is named for the famous American industrialist, Henry Kaiser, whose enterprises built the Grand Coulee, Boulder and Bonneville Dams and churned out the Victory Ships that saved the U.S. after Pearl Harbor.

Today the steelworkers at Kaiser Aluminum tell a troubling story of sacrifice without redemption. Plunged into the economic maelstrom of the early 1980s, Kaiser's steelworkers negotiated massive concessions to prevent the company from going into bankruptcy -- $150 million to be exact.

But when the good times came, Kaiser was purchased by Charles Hurwitz, the infamous junk bond king whose Maxxam Inc. had earlier engineered a hostile takeover of the Pacific Lumber Company (PLC), the nation's owner of the largest remaining stands of old growth redwoods.

After a decade of Hurwitz, on Sept. 30, 1998, frustrated by years of fruitless pleading and angered by Kaiser's unlawful behavior at the bargaining table, the 3000 workers struck in protest. Kaiser negotiators had arrogantly insisted on eliminating 700-900 of the remaining jobs and wouldn't even explain who would be left working in the downsized plants as the jobs were turned over to lower paid, contractor employees.

On Jan. 14, 1999 Kaiser officially converted the strike to a lock out, refusing the workers' unconditional offer to return to work.

Thus was born the unusual alliance between environmental activists protesting the clear cutting of Maxxam's Pacific Lumber and the United Steelworkers of America, fighting against the job cutting at Maxxam's Kaiser Aluminum. On Sunday, April 11 as chairperson of the USWA negotiating committee, I led a delegation of steelworkers on a difficult 45 minute climb through rugged Humbolt County terrain to reach the site of Julia (Butterfly) Hill's famous protest.

The tree itself, while impressive as all old growth redwoods are, stands alone among downed firs and redwoods where PLC attempted to log them by helicopter. While beautiful in its isolation, the area has none of the Cathedral quality of the ancient redwood groves protected in California's series of state and national parks. The hillside drops away at a 70 percent grade from the base of the tree, its inaccessibility making it that much more of a symbol of human destructiveness.

Julia is a slight woman, sharp features with pale skin, surrounded by a mass of black wavy hair. She is dressed in ski pants and a polar fleece. She goes barefoot and has the roughness in her hands of steelworkers. I am struck at once by her liveliness, wit and earthiness.

And so we sat 180 feet above the forest floor and discussed our common cause to bring the voice of human dignity and respect for the earth to a Fortune 500 company whose CEO once told the workers of Pacific Lumber, "Let me tell you about the Golden Rule. He, who has the gold, rules."

In my 25 years of negotiating with companies, encompassing many contentious labor disputes, I have disagreed passionately with many a corporate CEO. Our ethics may have diverged, but I have always felt there was a common source from which they sprang.

Today, I find myself in the presence of evil: 3,000 families locked out from their jobs at Kaiser Aluminum; a hundred years of timber cut clear in a decade by PLC; pension funds pillaged; taxpayers "contributing" a billion and a half dollars to Maxxam's failed Texas savings and loan. What is so chilling and powerful about evil is not its wealth, its well-heeled lobbyists or its intelligence. The power of evil comes from its determination.

Hill and I talked for an hour about our shared vision of an economy that responds to the democracy of its citizenry. I explained the reasons why the USWA had filed suit in California court challenging Pacific Lumber's Sustainable Yield Plan since it would ultimately strip Humbolt County of its logging and sawmill jobs that just as quickly as PLC cuts timber.

The Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment was born that weekend at a day-long strategy session of environmental organizations and steelworkers in Eureka, Calif. David Bower, father of the modern environmental movement, and I serve as the Alliance's co-chairs.

Two movements that have long shared common enemies are now embracing a common cause. In an era of globalization and the concentration of economic power, the threat to both our jobs and our environment cannot be fought alone.

When I left Hill, I was emboldened with that great determination of Dr. Martin Luther King, "The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Editor's Note:

David Foster is Director of District 11, United Steelworkers of America, in Minneapolis. He joined the Steelworkers in 1975 when he became an employee of North Star Steel Co. In 1989 and again in 1993, he was elected Director of District 33. He served as the secretary-treasurer of the St. Paul (Minn.) Trades and Labor for five years and is currently the director of the St. Paul Labor Studies and Resource Center, a program for dislocated workers. In addition to representing the Steelworkers on the AFL-CIO Organizing Task Force, Foster holds leadership positions on bargaining committees for Inland Steel and U.S. Steel. He also chairs several negotiating groups. One is Kaiser Aluminum Negotiations.