Fear Adds an Extra Shiver to the Minnesota Fall : Mill Town Trapped in War Over Hiring Non-Union Workers

The familiar chill of approaching winter is already in the air of this paper-making city deep in Minnesota’s North Woods.

Their season quickly ending, trees painted the rusty colors of autumn seem to shiver in the breezes. At dawn, frost now coats automobile windshields, and sporting goods stores are crowded with hunters preparing for the approaching deer, bear and duck seasons.

But it is not a normal autumn. This year, there is also an unfamiliar chill of fear.

International Falls, a usually friendly way station for wilderness-bound tourists, has become an angry, violent battlefield for organized labor and big business.

Here, a giant paper-making corporation and a construction company that uses primarily non-union labor are pitted against unionized Minnesota building trades workers struggling to prevent an erosion of their claim to jobs.

Vandalism, Riot

In the last two months, the picturesque city has been the scene of vandalism and hit-and-run attacks. Last Saturday an estimated 600 union members and sympathizers took part in a riot in which several persons were injured, dozens were arrested and property damage was estimated at $1.3 million.

“We are caught in the middle,” said Mayor Jack E. Murray, who wears a big “I Love International Falls” button on his sport jacket. “Our community is hurting, really hurting.”

“The local people are intimidated,” Police Chief Tom Hardy said. “People have been threatened. They are afraid. For the first time in my 34 years as a cop, I’m not sure I can protect them.”

At the center of the trouble is a $535-million expansion of Boise Cascade Corp.’s paper mill, a blocks-long, steam-belching factory that dominates this community of 8,500 both physically and economically. The mill employs almost 10% of the population and accounts for half of the city’s tax base.

The expansion, one of the largest such projects ever in Minnesota, will more than double the mill’s capacity. Eventually it will add hundreds of permanent paper-making and logging jobs. There will also be about 2,000 temporary jobs for construction workers on the two-year-long building project.

“Everybody was so excited about the new mill,” Police Chief Hardy said. “Now all the excitement has turned to grief.”

The first signs that the new mill might mean trouble occurred last winter, when Boise Cascade, headquartered in Boise, Ida., selected B E&K;, a Birmingham, Ala., firm to build the mill.

B E&K; uses primarily non-union labor imported from across the country on its projects, and Boise’s selection incensed labor leaders in Minnesota, a traditional stronghold of organized labor.

“We knew the building trades wouldn’t be happy,” said Andrew S. Drysdale, Boise Cascade’s public relations manager. But, Drysdale said, B E&K;’s bid on the project was $40 million less than that of a Missouri company that planned to use Minnesota union labor.

B E&K;, one of the nation’s biggest construction companies, has captured a major part of the work in a modernization and expansion boom now sweeping the nation’s paper-making industry. Labor unions claim that B E&K; also provides workers for paper mills hit by strikes. Although B E&K;’s wages are only slightly less than union wages, savings are realized by avoiding expensive union work and overtime rules.

“Eighty percent of our work is with the paper industry,” said Fred Garrick, B E&K;’s general counsel. Some of that work, he said, includes maintaining equipment at the sites of strikes.

“The success of the company is basically producing a quality product using a ‘merit shop,’ ” said Garrick. “We award work to the lowest qualified bidder . . . . Union companies are placed in competition with open shops. Frequently union shops are competitive with open shops.”

“B E&K; is traditionally a union-busting company,” said Brad Skarich, president of the Iron Range Building and Construction Trade Council, whose workers would have been employed if a union contractor had been hired for the project. “They want to come up here . . . and undermine our area (wage) standards.”

As the pace of construction at the site picked up, local unionized subcontractors hired by B E&K; worked alongside B E&K;’s work force during much of the summer despite ever-present tensions.

But, on July 18, 150 union workers, demanding more participation by Minnesota unions, walked off the job in a wildcat strike that continues today. Construction also continues, with at least 500 non-union workers. And now International Falls has become a citadel of fear.

Gov. Rudy Perpich, who comes from a union family and was elected with strong union backing, responded to the strike and the hard line adopted by Boise and B E&K; by threatening to withdraw a $16-million tax break awarded to the new plant. The governor also ordered state agencies to increase their monitoring of every aspect of Boise’s operation.

“There aren’t clean hands on any side of this issue,” said the Rev. William Beyer, pastor of the First Lutheran Church.

At this week’s City Council meeting, several unionized Boise mill workers and Councilman Larry Baron, a union officer in the mill, complained about the security force hired to protect the construction site and B E&K; workers.

“They’re chasing people home, going into motels, taking pictures,” Baron said. “People are getting sick and tired of this crap . . . . People are so scared they can’t go downtown anymore.”

Local police officials say they have been unsuccessful in keeping the security guards confined to Boise-B E&K; property. And, since last weekend’s riot, scores more company guards have reportedly been shipped into town.

Boise and B E&K; have complaints of their own. Wildcat strikers attempted to stop buses bringing workers to the construction site last July, smashing the windshield of one vehicle; and, in a separate incident, more than 100 union sympathizers harassed non-union job applicants at an employment office.

A B E&K; supervisor’s car burned in a mysterious early-morning fire and a homemade gasoline bomb destroyed an estimated $250,000 worth of equipment in a Boise supply yard. There have been no arrests in either incident.

The most serious incident occurred last Saturday. An estimated 600 sympathizers and union members massed at the edge of town where B E&K; is building temporary housing for 1,000 workers. Demonstrators swarmed over a chain-link fence and overran the guards, police officers and sheriff’s deputies, trashing the camp, overturning cars and setting fire to several buildings. The mob then moved downtown, where policemen used tear gas to prevent it from swarming over an apartment building housing B E&K; workers.

“Criminal activity has never occurred in this community like it is occurring now,” said Joseph M. Boyle, city attorney.

And the town has never been as divided or as unhappy.

Some wildcat strikers have brothers and fathers working inside the paper mill, where nine unions represent employees. Other wildcat strikers have relatives on the local police department or sheriff’s patrol.

“People are upset, uneasy,” said a supermarket manager who asked that he not be named. “People in town are not as happy and free as they were.”

Strangers are viewed with suspicion and most people will not talk with someone they do not know. Reporters are unwelcome. “Don’t take offense, but you’re giving International Falls a bad name,” the supermarket manager explained. Residents have begun locking their doors when they leave home. And there are increasing inquiries at the police station about procedures for getting handgun permits.

“We’re all praying there isn’t any more violence,” Beyer said.

Researcher Tracy Shryer in Chicago contributed to this story.