It's amazing how much misfortune seems to spring up in December as the holidays approach. Fires that claim lives in homes this heating season seem to be of the spectacular variety now and take far too many lives.

War is on the horizon and if you stop thumping your chest long enough you'll realize how much blood, death and strife that will lay at our feet. It requires that even peace-keeping, if peace can be found, be an extremely costly undertaking that detracts from our ability to take care of domestic needs.

And at WLSSD, Director Kurt Soderberg and his board members say that a measly $175,000 is destroying negotiations. What a disaster, a crime and a crock that is.

Soderberg has a psychology degree that he must be frustrated at not being able to use. It ain't an engineering degree that he'll run the plant with. If we looked deep enough into his history we'd probably find a military man and someone who wishes he had more power than he does. He should be a CEO of a huge private company and not a public entity. That's the way he's acting.

The first time I ever met him was after Labor Day 1989. With a set jaw he took me to task for a headline, of all things, that I had written in the second issue of the paper that I ever edited. I thought it was great and tabloid-worthy. 'Rally Corp Rips It Up At Rat Compound' was about the security firm-induced riot at the man-camp at Boise Cascade in International Falls.

Soderberg was very upset by my calling trades workers and their supporters the 'rally corp.'

Now just a few years down the road he's recreating that scene. He thinks fences and security firms are necessary to protect WLSSD from its workers, most of whom have been there as long as him and plan to go back in after the strike. A muscle flexer he.

He should be thinking more of protecting his workers. They work with hazardous materials of all types all the time. They are being asked to pay 100 percent more out of pocket for their health care. But that's not the most important thing to them. Keeping full time workers employed is.

How can he think that a hazardous site like WLSSD can run safely with part-time, temporary, and now scab employees? That's not how to protect the public.

Something stinks again at WLSSD. Hopefully we won't have a December disaster there.

This commentary is reprinted from "The View from the Ditch" column in the Duluth Labor World.