“The United Steelworkers of America and Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation have announced jointly that a tentative agreement has been reached on a process that will end their 21-month labor dispute.The tentative agreement, subject to membership ratification, calls for the parties to continue negotiations for the next 28 days and, if they fail to reach agreement, submit the remaining issues to binding interest arbitration.We have reached an important milestone in settling the labor dispute, said David Foster, USWA District #11 director and chairperson of the USWA Negotiating Committee. We know that there will be a date certain upon which our members will return to their jobs at the Kaiser plants whether through negotiated agreement or mandatory arbitration. We believe this agreement with the USWA will be fair both to our company and our employees, said Jeremy Sherman, spokesperson from Kaiser Aluminum. We look forward to the end of the dispute.The tentative agreement to arbitrate outstanding issues will be submitted to the 2900 USWA members for ratification during the week of July 10 at plants in Spokane and Tacoma, WA; Gramercy, LA; and Newark, OH. Under the arbitration agreement the parties will select an arbitration panel to resolve all outstanding contractual issues.If a negotiated settlement is not reached earlier, the arbitrator would resolve the dispute before the end of September, 2000.”