near zero by the year 2035. A different chart noted that every 10 percent decrease in serious incidents would yield between $5 million and $25 million for the company.
Another chart, entitled “Georgia-Pacific 20 Year Bet,” was written in the classic style of Market-Based Management materials. It featured colored boxes connected by dark lines in a wheel-and-spoke formation. The box in the center said, “Critical Risk Focus Areas,” and the connected boxes listed various Georgia-Pacific operations and risk hazards like “Combustible Dust” and “Electrical Safe Work Practices.” (Electrical shocks had skyrocketed at Georgia Pacific, rising from one in 2010, to twenty-three in 2015, and to thirty-one in 2017.) The chart said that risk could be reduced by changing “hearts and minds” in the workforce. It said the company workers must change their mind-set and “Go from Have To—To Want To” in terms of staying safe. In spite of this approach, workplace accident rates continued to accelerate that year.
* * *
In past decades, worker safety was a top priority for labor union negotiators. Industrial accidents were a driving force behind unionization in the early years of the New Deal. By 2016, however, unions were so marginalized and overpowered that they were playing a defensive game, simply trying to hold on to what benefits they had left.
This was the reality faced by the Dodger and the Hammer as they prepared to negotiate a new contract with Koch in 2016. Hammond knew that this would likely be the last contract he negotiated on behalf of the IBU, his last chance after nearly a decade to make things better.
Before negotiations even began, Georgia-Pacific sent powerful and ominous signals to the IBU. In 2015, Koch Industries told the IBU that it was pulling Georgia-Pacific’s representatives off the board of trustees that oversaw both the IBU’s pension and the health care trust. It was common for companies to help oversee the funds, and Koch’s withdrawal seemed like the first step toward ending all support for the pension and health care plans.
The Dodger was alarmed. “All the sudden, I’m thinking, Are they going to pull out of the health trust completely and shove this up our ass?” he said.
The IBU team reached out to Jackie Steele, a labor relations expert at Georgia-Pacific who was their new negotiating partner. Steele sent a message: Georgia-Pacific might be able to let the workers keep their pension and health care, or it might be able to give them a raise. But it seemed impossible that the company could do both.
Dodge and Hammond conveyed this message to the rank-and-file union members. The union members weren’t having it. They wanted to keep their benefits, and they needed to get a raise on top of it. The raises hadn’t been keeping up with the cost of living for years. “The guys want more, more, more, more,” Dodge said in exasperation. “They don’t know what you’ve got to go through!”
The IBU members were not inclined to listen to Hammond and Dodge. In fact, they were not inclined to the listen to the union at all. This became painfully clear in early 2016, a presidential election year. The IBU and the Longshoremen unions endorsed the Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. When Sanders lost his primary battle, unions across the country asked their members to switch their support to what they considered the next best thing: the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. Many IBU warehouse workers, for the first time that anybody could remember, said they planned to vote against the wishes of union leadership. They wanted to vote for a Republican. And their grievances were about to be further enflamed.
* * *
Once again, the Dodger and the Hammer arrived at the Red Lion hotel to negotiate with Koch’s team. The IBU members took their assumed seats in the familiar conference room with the view of the river, just next door to the lavishly catered room where Koch’s team of negotiators sat staring at their laptops. It was like watching the same movie for the third time. At least this time around, the process was mercifully short.
On the second day, they discussed the money. Dodge said that the IBU workers wanted to keep their IBU health care and their IBU pension. They also wanted annual raises to compensate them for roughly six years of stagnant pay.
“I said, ‘Is there any chance on that, and what do you think?’ ” Dodge recalled. “Steele says: ‘Yeah, we may be able to work something out.’ ”
Steele left the room. He returned with bad news. The