Retired union leader: there's hope for Alcoa

MASSENA — When Richard M. Orton started working at the former Reynolds Metals 31 years ago, there were about 500 employees at the plant. By the time he was elected president of United Steelworkers Local 450 in 2006, there were 365 workers at what had become the Alcoa East Plant. Now, there are about 200 hourly workers at the idled facility.

Despite the setbacks and layoffs Massena labor has endured throughout Mr. Orton's career, he said, he is optimistic this Labor Day weekend about the future of union jobs and Alcoa in Massena.

Mr. Orton, who spent 17 years in union leadership, retired from Alcoa last month and relinquished presidency of the local. Although the road with Alcoa occasionally has been rocky, Mr. Orton said, he has no regrets about Alcoa's purchase of Reynolds Metals.

While many shake their heads at the changes Alcoa brought to the East Plant, Mr. Orton said, he is grateful that the plant is still here.

"Alcoa is a big giant, and they're tough and everything else, but if anything it added a lot of years to my livelihood that I wouldn't have had," he said. "And they're aluminum people. They like aluminum smelting."

Many other Reynolds plants have been closed, Mr. Orton said. When he started, Reynolds had seven smelters in the country. The Alcoa East plant is the only smelter of those seven left, he said.

Mr. Orton said that when he saw what happened to the other plants, he became more appreciative of working for Alcoa.

"We have plants that Alcoa never bought. They were bought by other companies that just bought them to close them," he said. "Alcoa bought us to run it."

In addition, the East Plant has a package that is very attractive to Alcoa, Mr. Orton said. Alcoa's commitment to Massena and promise to begin operating a smelter in the East Plant again is reason enough to see the glass as half-full, Mr. Orton said.

"As viewed from representing the members in there, I would tell you, you have a good chance of working in there 30 years like I did," he said. "Once that new plant is built, something drastic in the world would have to happen to close a brand-new smelter."

Having the plant idled still beats the alternative, Mr. Orton said.

"I know presidents that lost their plants, like General Motors," he said. "And I know presidents that lost their Alcoa plants. And there's nothing there but grass."

The deal arranged with the New York Power Authority for inexpensive hydropower is a big reason Alcoa is here for the long haul, Mr. Orton said.

"You could work in there for 20 cents an hour, and they couldn't afford to make aluminum if it wasn't for energy," he said.

The two-year window to bring the plant out of its idled state closes next spring, when the Memorandum of Understanding that Alcoa entered into with NYPA ends, Mr. Orton said. By then, a decision on the future of Alcoa East will be made, he said.

Mr. Orton said the most exciting time of his 31-year career was representing employees once Alcoa took over for Reynolds, including his recent assistance in negotiating a new employee contract earlier this year.

"Reynolds was mom-and-pop. I transitioned from that to a company with a whole different philosophy," he said. "Alcoa right out of the gate was, 'You either do this or you're not going to survive.'"

Representing his fellow employees when Alcoa took over for Reynolds was a challenge Mr. Orton said he looked forward to meeting.

"They're business-minded people, and you go into a room and you get the heck what you can out of them," he said.

Through it all, Mr. Orton kept his nose to the grindstone and his spirits up.

"As tough as it got, I kept telling our guys, 'Look, what else have we got? We stay at the table and we get what we get,'" he said. "I didn't go home and lose a lot of sleep over it. I found it enjoyable, challenging and rewarding. There's still a flicker of hope."

Mr. Orton's pro-labor instincts run in the family. His father worked in a union shop as a welder, and his grandfather worked for Alcoa and in Canadian paper mills.

Mr. Orton became involved in union leadership in 1993 and was elected vice president in 2000 before becoming president in 2006. He was the only union "presidential liaison" representative at Alcoa headquarters as the company and union negotiated the new contract this year.

Having a guy who was directly in touch with Alcoa employees at the top bargaining table made a difference in the negotiations, he said.

"I would do it all over again," Mr. Orton said. "I didn't do so bad."