Kaiser has locked out 3,100 members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) at its plants in Mead, Trentwood, and Tacoma in Washington State, as well as in Gramercy, Louisiana, and Newark, Ohio, since January of this year.

Dan Russell, the USWA local president at Mead, said the August 28 rally there followed two weeks of negotiations between Kaiser and the union that had broken down without reaching agreement to end the lockout.

The sheriff's department said that at the rally "union members became unruly and began threatening replacement workers" as they arrived for the evening shift.

Jeanne Jokkel, a leader of Spouses of Steel, was at the rally that night. In a phone interview with the Militant she said, "There was no 'near riot,' as Spokane media reported." According to Jokkel, about 150 people gathered to yell at the scabs, and to slowly walk on the picket line, delaying but not stopping traffic into the plant. "We were on county property, not Kaiser's" the whole time, she added.

USWA picket captain Stan McPhee said that a replacement worker entering Mead ran over the foot of John Tierney, one of the locked-out Steelworkers. Although Tierney appealed to sheriff's officers, they arrested him. "They wouldn't take a report even after I was put in jail," he told Fox 28 news.

Jokkel was also hit by a Kaiser truck on its way through the picket line. She suffered a bruised hip and elbow, she told the Militant. "I was stunned; I almost passed out," and had to sit down on the back of a truck. She was upset with the police response. "The deputy across the street saw it happen, but refused to make a report. He even shoved me away from him twice," when she talked to him about it, she said. She later filed a report at a police station.

Sheriff Mark Sterk said that the arrests were made after protesters refused to disperse. "They probably didn't move as quickly as they should of," he told Fox News.

However, deputies arrested Rocky Mason, a Steelworker, and his wife, Carlene, as they walked away from the rally. "We were picketing, they asked us to leave, we left, they arrested us," he said. The two were booked on charges of disorderly conduct.

According to Jokkel, two other people were arrested who weren't even at that gate, but were picketing nearly half a mile away.

While in jail, Mason and his wife, who is diabetic, pleaded repeatedly with officers to get her a badly needed insulin shot. The cops refused to do so. Mason said, "She didn't get out of jail until 2:30 in the morning and her blood sugar was so bad she was drenched sweating, shaking."

Another woman was hurt while being arrested, straining a rotator cup in her shoulder, according to union members. Some of those arrested didn't get out of jail until nearly 4:30 a.m., as the Spokane County jail wouldn't accept checks or credit cards, Jokkel explained.

The Kaiser workers are building an October 2 rally at the Trentwood union hall, to mark the one-year anniversary of their strike, which Kaiser bosses then turned into the lockout (see calendar on page 10).  
 
 
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