Steelworkers want Tri-Met to rule out Oregon Steel

Just two U.S. companies manufacture steel rail for railroad track, and the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) wants the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District (Tri-Met) to bar one of them as a producer for its new 10-mile Interstate light-rail line scheduled for construction in inner-northeast Portland.

The union is pushing a "Resolution on Responsible Contracting" that might disqualify from the bidding process any company found to violate state or federal laws. If such a resolution passes, the union hopes Rocky Mountain Steel of Pueblo, Colo., would be disqualified.

Rocky Mountain Steel is a subsidiary of Portland-based Oregon Steel Mills, which has been engaged in an unfair labor practices dispute with the Steelworkers since 1997, when it replaced 1,100 workers who offered to return to work following a three-month strike.

The labor dispute has resulted in the placing of Wells Fargo Bank on the national AFL-CIO's Do Not Patronize List because of its role in a consortium of eight banks that have loaned money to Oregon Steel to keep the mill operating.

Since the lockout, Rocky Mountain has been slapped with numerous safety violations by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration totalling more than $487,000 in fines. Two replacement workers have been killed in job-related accidents and others have been seriously injured.

Last May the National Labor Relations Board found Rocky Mountain Steel guilty of numerous violations of federal labor law and ordered the company to reinstate and make back-pay restitution to the locked-out union workers. The potential back-pay liability has topped $120 million.

The Steelworkers argue that because of its recent history the mill should not be considered a responsible bidder.

"They certainly are irresponsible," said Kirk Gibson, vice president of sales for Pennsylvania Steel Technologies, a division of Bethlehem Steel.

Pennsylvania Steel is the other U.S. company that produces rail track. It has produced rail for West Coast buyers in the past, but is at a disadvantage geographically because shipping costs from its Steelton, Pa., plant are $60 to $80 per ton higher.

If Rocky Mountain Steel were disqualified from the bidding process, Pennsylvania Steel would still be more likely to get the contract than foreign steel companies.

The Steelworkers' resolution was originally introduced July 27, and the Tri-Met Board is expected to vote on it by the end of October. Tri-Met earlier expected to award the rail contract in September, but delays in getting federal funding have pushed that back to January or February.

The union has tried to meet individually with Tri-Met board members, but so far the only member who has accepted is Robert Williams, a business representative at United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555.

To increase pressure on the board, the union is reaching out to environmentalists, religious leaders, and members of the communities that will be affected by the light-rail line.

The workers rights group Jobs With Justice held a Sept. 12 hearing of the Oregon Steel case before its Workers Rights Board, a panel of community leaders. Scheduled to testify were Clint Allison, son of a recalled union worker killed in a recent industrial accident at the Pueblo plant; David Leslie, executive director of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, who went on a fact-finding mission to Pueblo; and Oregon State Representative Dan Gardner, who plans to reduce a Responsible Contracting bill in the next legislative session. Gardner is vice president of Portland Electrical Workers Local 48.

"The purpose of the hearing is to shine a public light on what this corporation is doing both to its workers and to the community," said Jobs With Justice staffperson Margaret Butler. The outcome of that hearing was not available at presstime.

The union is also lining up allies to testify at the Sept. 27 Tri-Met Board meeting. And it's circulating a letter among local religious leaders asking them to sign on to an appeal to Tri-Met.

The letter is based on a similar appeal sent out in August by the national AFL-CIO to religious leaders around the country calling on Oregon Steel to reinstate the locked-out workers and negotiate a just settlement, which at least 100 people of faith have signed.

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