Intalco workers look for options amid plant curtailment

When Bryan Bell found out his wife was pregnant in 2006, his uncle helped him get a job that would support a family. It had benefits, pension and 401(k). That good job allowed him to buy a house in Birch Bay a few years later and support his two daughters. He planned to be there until retirement.

But nearly three months after Alcoa announced the curtailment of its Intalco Works smelter in Ferndale on April 22, workers like Bell are grappling with questions about the future of their livelihood.

“I felt secure, to be honest. I didn’t think I needed to look for another job,” said Bell, who is now 39 and anticipates being laid off next month. “We’ve had so many threats before I just always assumed they’d keep doing this.”

Bell and his coworkers will benefit from the U.S. Department of Labor’s July 2 approval of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program for Intalco employees, which offers opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t have been available with unemployment benefits such as retraining and
income support.

About 200 workers remain at the last smelter west of the Mississippi River, estimates Glenn Farmer, local business representative for International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW). Job losses began in June and will continue until mid-August, when the number of employees will drop to a core staff of about 35 people, he said. That group will dwindle to 14 by July 2021.

Workers say some have moved on; IKO Pacific, a roofing manufacturer in Sumas, has hired laid-off Intalco workers and Bell said a former coworker already moved to Texas. Others have plans to start school at Bellingham Technical College and find a new trade. Bell has crafted his first resume in 15 years and gets alerts on his phone for the few job openings in the county.

“Once you go through something like this, you don’t want to have to go through it again,” Bell said.

Every Intalco job lost equates to 2-2.5 unstable jobs in the county when workers scale back their normal spending habits, explained Hart Hodges, director of the Center of Economics and Business Research at Western Washington University. That means the Intalco losses threaten more than 1,750 jobs in the area.

“The ripple effects have certainly started because the layoff notices have been given, people know what change is coming and they have changed their spending,” Hodges said.

Even without Covid-19, Hodges said he doesn’t believe all 700 workers could find new jobs right away in Whatcom County, which had a population of slightly more than 229,000 people in 2019, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

“Some of the workers at Intalco will be picked up by companies in the area but not all 700. Some can find work but out of the area and some are going to have to think about career changes,” he said.

Hodges said the effects of Bellingham’s Georgia-Pacific pulp mill closure in the early 2000s were obscured by the growth of other businesses in the region like PeaceHealth and Western Washington University. Similar to the closure of Georgia-Pacific, he predicts the economic impacts of Intalco job losses will be hidden by Covid-19 unemployment.

“I think a lot of people are getting extra money from the government because of unemployment right now so you’re not going to see an influx, but come fall, it’s going to be bad,” Bell predicted.

The Northwest Workforce Council in Bellingham is providing former Intalco employees with resources to apply for unemployment and search for jobs. But Farmer said fewer workers are taking advantage because of difficulty navigating online tools that otherwise would be in person. He said he’s experienced the same problem dispersing information to workers while the union’s in-person meetings are put on hold because of Covid-19.

Workers commend efforts of local lawmakers, including Senator Doug Ericksen and representatives Luanne Van Werven and Sharon Shewmake but say change needs to come from the federal level.

Ericksen, one of the representatives with whom union members meet regularly, said he’ll continue working with local, state and federal officials to find ways to keep the aluminum industry alive in the U.S.

“I believe it’s in the national interest of the country to maintain its primary metal production,” he said.

Intalco is shuttering at a time when domestic primary production of aluminum is less than half of domestic demand, according to data from the union. Ericksen and workers raise concerns that relying on China, or any other foreign entity, for aluminum production could threaten national security if the U.S. went to war.

Workers and lawmakers like Shewmake also argue that keeping aluminum production in the U.S. will lower greenhouse gas emissions because of stricter environmental regulations here.

One of the Ferndale plant’s three lines is left running, Bell said, and after the third week of August, that one will shut down, as well. Two-and-half lines ran before curtailment.

Workers stay optimistic that, like the four other times Alcoa has threatened to shut the plant since it bought the company in 1998, the plant won’t close and the government will buy the Ferndale smelter or facilitate its sale.

“[Alcoa] decided long ago that we weren’t a money maker. I disagree. I think one of the best things we have going out there is that work force that cares. You can’t buy that,” Bell said.

Meanwhile, Farmer said, workers are putting the aluminum production cells, where the aluminum is made, to “sleep” and leaving the equipment in operable condition, ready to re-start if the plant is bought.

“I’m still optimistic. Something could happen but it’s hard,” Bell said. “After seeing everybody leave, every week it’s just a little tougher to think something is going to happen to save the day.”