[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 42 (Wednesday, March 14, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1665-S1666]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            CENTURY ALUMINUM

  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I am in this Chamber with my 
colleague, Senator Joe Manchin, who has as much interest in this as I 
do and feels the happiness from a wonderful event which will happen, we 
hope, tomorrow in West Virginia, which will not necessarily be a moment 
that most people around the country or even in this body will notice, 
but it is an enormous moment to the people of West Virginia because it 
has been a long festering problem that we believe will be ratified 
tomorrow.
  What am I talking about? Tomorrow the retirees at Century Aluminum in 
Ravenswood, WV, hopefully, are going to ratify a decision that has been 
reached by the Steelworkers, led by a local heroine, an icon of 
Appalachia, Karen Gorrell, who has stood out all night by the roadside 
protesting.
  Back in 2009, Century Aluminum--and aluminum is a volatile industry 
but very much of an up-industry now--simply shut down. Hundreds of jobs 
and hundreds of retirees and their families were just cut out and cut 
off. Periods of negotiation went on with Century Aluminum under the 
particular management then, but it wasn't going anywhere. There wasn't 
a lot of goodwill that I was able to detect.
  Then comes the kind of change you really want to see. You start with 
good people, good workers. It is a hard job. It pays pretty good wages, 
good benefits--not defined benefits in terms of health care but VIPA 
benefits, which are benefits nevertheless for retirees. They are good 
people who are located in a rural county in West Virginia, which is 
kind of the heartland of West Virginia where a lot of good people come 
from. They tend to work very hard and to be very wonderful. What these 
men and women have always wanted is simply to be treated fairly.
  In a world of big corporations, decisions are made from far away 
places by corporate leaders. But it doesn't necessarily need to work 
that way--that the people on the line are out in the cold without 
benefits, without health care at all. There they are picketing or just 
being miserable, and the world pays little attention because there is 
not a lot of progress made, so the attention is pulled away from it. 
But not if you are under the leadership of Karen Gorrell, the local 
union leader there. She is a fantastic woman who brings not only 
ferocity--she went to a corporate meeting--and the occupant of the 
chair will enjoy this because I know him well--wearing a T-shirt that 
was sort of the hand of the corporation with blood dripping off it, and 
it was a stockholders meeting. She was so good that people sort of 
respected her for that rather than resent her for it. But she is a 
strong, classic Appalachian person, a very strong union leader.
  What happened was there was new management at Century. The State had 
been extraordinarily helpful, the legislature, putting up a lot of 
money over a period of 10 years. What should have been able to happen 
was that Century Aluminum would open again, people would go back to 
work. But then the big enchilada would be if the Ravenswood plant 
itself, the old Kaiser plant, would open, for which there is a real 
purpose.
  They reminisce in West Virginia about Henry Kaiser, who obviously 
built that plant many years ago, going through the plant shaking hands 
with workers, knowing their names. That was a different era, and he was 
an extraordinarily good man.
  Senator Manchin and I want this situation to be worked out. We have 
both worked very hard on it. Actually, the parties weren't that far 
apart. What made them not that far apart was that the issues were 
complicated, but it was the will to settle that predominated. Each side 
didn't get exactly what they wanted, but each side, in a sophisticated, 
nuanced way, understood there were very high stakes for losing 
everything and very high stakes, including a lot of money from the West 
Virginia Legislature over 10 years. The stakes for winning, for 
settling were extraordinary.
  Everybody rose to the occasion. This could never have happened 
without the leadership of Karen Gorrell and her particular type of 
leadership, which I found wonderful, just refreshing. I have been out 
there many times over the years because Century Aluminum has had a lot 
of problems. I am sure Senator Manchin has too.
  Now I am praying and hoping they are going to ratify this agreement 
tomorrow. If that is so, I am not sure the news will reach Baltimore, 
and I am certain it will not reach Vancouver, but it will reach all 
over West Virginia. It will be an example of labor and management, with 
good corporate and union leadership, coming together at precisely the 
right moment, after a tremendous amount of strain and stress and anger.
  I conclude my statement just praying that the retirees will do what I 
think they are going to do tomorrow--I encourage that--and accept the 
agreement agreed to by the union and Century Aluminum. If that happens, 
whether they know about it in Vancouver doesn't interest me much. They 
will know about it in West Virginia, and I care about that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I also rise in support, along with 
Senator Rockefeller. What a good job he has done. We have both had the 
honor of serving our great State as Governors. As every Governor and 
legislator knows, we fight for every job we can create. We fight like 
the dickens to save every job we have.
  As the Senator said, he has been fighting these battles for many 
years. I was in the legislature when he was our Governor. We fought 
side by side then. When I became Governor, he was a Senator in 
Washington, and he fought along with me on every job we created and 
saved. Now here we are again side by side fighting.
  Ravenswood, in Jackson County, is a very unique place. In Ripley and 
all the surrounding towns, we have about 22,000 people who live there, 
and 4,200 people live in Ravenswood, 3,000 in Ripley. One can tell how 
that is the lifeblood, truly, of the community. Lucy Harbert is the 
mayor. She is dogmatic. Karen Gorrell is unbelievable. There are men 
and women there fighting basically for what was promised to them, 
fighting for survival.
  I think the big story is that in 2009, the plant closed, as the 
Senator said. In 2010, all the employees were told all of their health 
care benefits that had been promised to them and negotiated in good 
faith were gone--all gone by the stroke of a pen. The courts upheld it.

  Lo and behold, we have a new management team. We have Mike Bless--and 
we are talking about Monterey, CA. Clear out there. These people came 
in and saw what we had, the fabric of the town and the fortitude of 
these people. So management said: We need to do something. Karen 
Gorrell and the rest of them never let up. They said: We want to be 
treated fairly. We want what we were promised. Everyone made 
considerations here.
  What we have coming up with a vote tomorrow--as the Senator said, 
there will be a vote for the retirees to accept the proposal they have 
been negotiating, which I am hopeful and I know Senator Rockefeller is 
too--will be

[[Page S1666]]

passed tomorrow. That is the first step in the right direction. The 
State has entered as a partner also. With the State, they will work out 
power contracts and things of this sort. How important are power 
prices? How important is the coal and the power that coal produces? 
Without that, we would be dead in the water.
  There is so much promising going on. But when you see a community 
come together--Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, our friend, worked hard in 
the legislature. This is not a story we see today in America that much.
  In 2009, the plant closed. Over 600 people lost their jobs in a 
little town of 4,200 people. Now we have a chance to at least get 400 
or 500 back on the job. We have not seen that turn around too much. You 
can imagine why Senator Rockefeller and I are so excited, and I think 
more than anything we are so proud that we represent a State that has 
so much resilience. They have stuck together. So our hat is off, from 
the corporate end to the union end, to the people working together from 
the community.
  I need to say that the President of the Steelworkers Union, Leo 
Girard, has just been a rock. Leo gets right in there. The Steelworkers 
stood behind their retirees. They stood behind them. They would not 
take anything less than the retirees being treated fairly. That brought 
everybody to the table and gave us the glue it took.
  Senator Rockefeller is persuasive, as you know, in his ability to get 
involved and persuade people to do the right thing, and all of us were 
behind this effort. It came to fruition. Today, West Virginia is a 
brighter spot, and Ravenswood is a brighter place. Hopes are up again. 
The people are enthusiastic, and we can see they have a little skip in 
their step. That means an awful lot. These are the hardest working 
people, who don't ask for a whole lot--just an opportunity to take care 
of themselves and their families.
  To Lucy Harbert, Karen Gorrell, Mike Bless, and Leo Girard, Senator 
Rockefeller, and the entire West Virginia delegation, I think everybody 
should be extremely pleased. Tomorrow we know it will be a successful 
vote. We are going to show the country we can compete with anybody in 
the world. I know the occupant of the chair feels the same way in 
Maryland, and you have been able to. We will work together on this and 
start rebuilding America one job at a time. This is 400 jobs at one 
time.
  With that, I say thank you to all of the good people in West Virginia 
who made this happen. I thank Senator Rockefeller for his leadership 
over the years. I have been honored to work with him. He has been a 
tremendous mentor. We will continue to work together for many years.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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