Alaska Employment Law

Lenny Arsenault was Business Manager of Fairbanks Local 375 of the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters from 1976 through 1991.  For the last ten of those years, he was also International Vice President of the UA, responsible for all the West Coast locals.  During his reign, Arsenault’s power within the Alaska labor movement was exceeded only by that of Jesse Carr, Secretary-Treasurer of Alaska Teamsters Local 959.  Arsenault died in 2004, aged 79.

Jesse Carr was front-page news in Alaska for decades - from his criminal trials in the 1960’s and his shutdowns of the Pipeline in the 1970’s, through his protracted battle with Milt Odom and the Local’s bankruptcy in the mid-1980’s.  In contrast, Lenny Arsenault attracted less public attention, except in 1985, when the Fifth Avenue Building scandal helped to trigger the Bill Sheffield grand jury and the Legislature’s impeachment proceedings.  Arsenault was an investor in the Building and had lobbied to centralize State offices in Fairbanks in the building.  Sheffield’s denial that he had discussed the issue with Arsenault was the central issue before the Legislature.  It decided not to impeach Sheffield.

One of Arsenault’s colleagues from the early 1980’s has now sought to rectify Arsenault’s comparative obscurity.  Alaska’s Last Frontiersman is a fictionalized biography of Arsenault, written by a shirt-tail relative and a short-time Local 375 fitter named Lee Moran, and by an Outside fitter named Chick Norbeck.  They lightly trace Arsenault’s pre-Alaska years (youth in Maine, service in WWII as a Marine) and his early Fairbanks years running a business and working out of Local 375 on DEW Line sites.

With the start of Pipeline construction in 1974, Arsenault saw his chance and, with the assistance of J. C. Wingfield, replaced incumbent Business Manager, Cy Hughes.   For a while, the exploding demand for skilled fitters required an accommodation with Outside UA locals, especially Tulsa Local 798, but Arsenault eventually acquired near absolute control over pipefitting north of the Alaska Range.  His power apparently rested on his ability to deliver highly skilled fitters who returned his generosity with loyalty.  

Arsenault’s power peaked with his election to the International vice presidency in 1981, and the election of his friend Bill Sheffield as Alaska governor in 1982.  He raised prodigious amounts of money for politicians of both parties.  His heyday lasted until the Sheffield impeachment hearings in 1985.  With  the drop in oil prices in 1986, and then Big Oil’s use of VECO to try to break union power on the North Slope, Alaska labor union power plummeted.   When Arsenault retired in 1991, his push for Alaska hire had largely failed.

Moran and Norbeck’s tale centers on an alleged plot by Big Oil and their service company (called Austin Oil in the book) to import and sell cocaine to North Slope workers.  When three fitters disappear in 1981, Moran-Norbeck have Arsenault jumping in to solve the mystery, outsmarting corrupt Alaska State Troopers and eluding Deadhorse whiteouts.  Parts of the cocaine plot sound plausible, given the North Star Terminal shenanigans, but Local 375 veterans recall no North Slope murders.

Moran and Norbeck may have captured Arsenault’s personality - his loyalty and generosity to fellow fitters seem undeniable.  The authors also concede (maybe even celebrate) Arsenault’s habit of greasing his way through Alaska politics; in fact, they come close to complaining that Arsenault didn’t get what he paid for.  But they are utterly undependable on a swath of easily verifiable facts.  They locate Chena Hot Springs west, not east of Fairbanks; they claim the state’s population is less than 170,000; and they describe the Inupiat of the North Slope as Indians.   The book is pockmarked with typos, half or run-on half sentences, and embarrassing slang.  They lack perspective - they describe Local 375 as the most powerful union in the United States.  That was not true of even Teamsters Local 959 at the height of its powers.

Lenny Arsenault and Jesse Carr deserve real biographies.  Neither one has one yet.   

Lee Moran & Chick Norbeck, Alaska’s Last Frontiersman: Based on the Life of Lenny Arsenault (ISBN 1424177103; Publish America 2007), $19.95, available through Amazon and at Barnes & Noble stores.