Since industry has made it's mark on our land and our working lives, employers have always been able to connect the issues of labor and the environment (which hasn't usually been a good thing). Maximum returns to the stockholders have always been at the expense of workers' safety, health, and jobs, and environmental laws have also been manipulated to this end. So naturally, big business would be frightened by any efforts by workers to link the issues of environment and labor. Take, for example, the response of Kaiser Aluminum and the Port of Tacoma, when members of Earth First! (EF!) and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) helped steelworkers shut down Pier 7 in Tacoma on Monday, Dec. 6, and block the unloading of a ship with cargo that was destined for the Kaiser facilities in Tacoma and Spokane. The steelworkers at Kaiser Aluminum called for the action, and are entering their third month of a bitter strike and lockout.

The United Steel Workers Of America (USWA) have been at the brunt of the steel barons' war against workers in the last couple of years. Workers at Oregon Steel in Colorado were locked out of their jobs and replaced by a scab labor force after an unfair labor practices strike, and Oregon steel has been able to ride out the financial difficulty thanks to a generous line of credit granted by Wells Fargo Bank to bust the union. Similarly, Kaiser Aluminum has also been granted millions of dollars by an unknown lender, to aid in the smashing of the USWA in the Kaiser facilities in Ohio, Louisiana, and Washington State. The owner of Kaiser Aluminum, MAXXAM Inc. (headed by corporate raider Charles Hurwitz) has also made enemies in the California Redwoods by acquiring Pacific Lumber Company and vowing to leave no old growth standing.

Hurwitz's attitude toward the Redwood old growth and the defenders of these forests--Earth First! activists--has also manifested itself at Kaiser Aluminum. In efforts to bust the USWA, Kaiser has brought in housing for the scab workforce, and those units have been located on a potential super-fund site--inside the gates of the Tacoma plant itself. Naturally, health officials in Olympia and the Tacoma city council have turned their heads, allowing Kaiser to violate zoning and safety laws that prohibit letting even scabs live on polluted land in an industrial area. The steelworkers, seeing that the cross-hairs had been leveled on the union, made the connection and took a risk that would shock union workers and employers alike--they called in Earth First!.

On Saturday, December 4, a ship called the Sea Diamond, loaded in Australia with bauxite for use at the Kaiser plants in Tacoma and Spokane, was due to land at Pier 7 in Tacoma. All that was needed was a legal picket that longshore workers could honor: a picket by a union independent of the ILWU and the steelworkers, who were already under the thumb of an injunction. The USWA appealed to the IWW for support, and they agreed to set up a picket line to inform the longshore workers of the situation, risking a possible suit by both the owners of the shipping company and Kaiser Aluminum.

After delays due to weather off the coast, the Sea Diamond entered Puget Sound on Monday, December 6, while a crowd of 150 gathered at a truck stop 2 miles away, preparing to descend en masse to Pier 7, where the crane and conveyor belt was already occupied by EF! members. An elaborate communications base was set up to communicate to the press and television and keep in touch with the picketers and climbers. At approximately 7:00 AM, the first longshore worker, a crane operator, turned around at the picket line, after being informed of the health and safety concerns by an IWW member (who had also worked the waterfront and was familiar with the terms of the ILWU contract). It is unsafe, after all, to operate a crane with an Earth First!er chained to the boom. As media descended on the pier, the Sea Diamond dropped anchor in Puget Sound, since the pier was also blockaded by a boat picket and personal water craft driven by steelworkers. The pier was shut down, and no bauxite would be discharged that day. Safety problems discovered after the action would delay the unloading even further, as waterfront workers had assured steelworkers that every safety and work rule would be honored as the ship was unloaded.

Robert Lalicker, a member of the USWA, expressed the reasons for the action in a simple phrase: "Hurwitz cuts jobs like he cuts trees." Workers at the Kaiser plants face the loss of 400 jobs, outsourcing of more jobs, pension cuts, phony raises through the manipulation of employee stocks, and continued deterioration of worker safety. In addition, Kaiser has spent 8 million dollars for IMAC "security" goons, fences, trailers, lawyers, and labor consultants. It seems that MAXXAM has almost as much concern for Kaiser workers as they do for old growth Redwoods.

Kaiser spokespeople expressed "concern" to the Tacoma News Tribune that the "union had allied itself with an extremist organization." Caught off guard, the employers expressed dissatisfaction for reasons besides just the loss of money from a delayed ship; an alliance of environmentalists and radical unionists in support of the steelworkers--who are respected by longshore workers in a separate industry--is a real problem for management and their desire to control workers' lives.

The action also marked a turning point in left activism in general in the Northwest, where more often than not groups are divided and splintered because of obsessions with single issues and narrow ideologies. Employers express concern when an array of groups will back a mainstream struggle, like steelworkers striking in a city that the Left has nearly forgotten. These are the places where most working people live, and when activists start to recognize this fact, we will begin to see the etching away of corporate power that wants us all to work for $6 an hour. The steelworkers stand a chance of winning their struggle, thanks to their own risk of inviting the help of "radicals," and the fortitude of those radicals to relinquish opportunism for their "cause" and instead support a common struggle.