LONGVIEW, Washington (From The Daily News) -- KapStone has won a key legal victory in its ongoing dispute with the pulp and paper union, and it will not be forced to return to the bargaining table, at least for now.

The National Labor Relations Board agreed that KapStone acted in good faith when it declared a bargaining impasse with the millworkers' union on Aug. 3. That's when the company implemented its latest contract offer, even though the union had rejected it.

Separately, NLRB officials said Thursday that the union's 12-day walkout in August and September was an economic strike -- one meant to force the company into contract concessions -- and not an unfair labor practice strike. NLRB's stance means KapStone could have legally hired permanent replacement workers, although it allowed most workers to return to work once the union ended its walkout.

It's uncertain how much the NLRB's findings may constrain the union in its attempt to press for more concessions. At the very least, though, it may remove the company's incentive to bargain further and potentially solidify the stalemate.

"The company insists on implementing a substandard offer that will only prolong the current labor dispute. Impasse won't bring labor peace to the Longview Mill, good faith bargaining will," said John Minor, spokesman for Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers, Local 153.

The company declared an impasse after several months of failed talks, union strike authorization votes and worker rejection of several contract offers. The union contended that KapStone "illegally and prematurely" declared an impasse because some contract terms had yet to been bargained and several union requests for information had not been fulfilled.

Ronald Hooks, regional director of the NLRB office in Seattle, dismissed that charge, saying there was "substantial evidence" to support the fact that an impasse had been reached.

"Specifically, the investigation revealed that the parties bargained for 15 months, for a total of upwards of 20-30+ bargaining sessions, with very little movement occurring on either side on the key bargaining issues separating the parties over the weeks and months leading up to the employer's declaration of impasse," Hooks wrote in a Dec. 24 dismissal letter to the union.

Although Hooks wrote that he has found merit in some of the union's other alleged unfair labor practice charges, "none of these unfair labor practices were related to the core bargaining issues," and none of them caused the deadlock in contract talks.

Hooks told The Daily News that the union would face "an uphill battle" if it continued to press the same issues that deadlocked the two sides on the first place. However, there's nothing to stop the union to request a return to negotiations, he said.

"The fact that the employer has implemented its offer does not mean that that it is cemented in stone forever," Hooks said.

In the event of any future walkout, he added, NLRB would have to judge the strike on its merits and would not automatically consider it an economic strike.

AWPPW representatives called Hooks' dismissal of the impasse charge "disappointing" and defended their position.

"The charge of illegally declaring impasse was only one of many unfair labor practice charges that had been filed against KapStone in the preceding year and a half," Minor said. "The ULP strike on Aug. 27 was in response to a company pattern of continually thumbing their noses at existing labor law and violating the rights of our members."

At the time of the strike, the NLRB already had found merit in several of the union's charges, such as KapStone's alleged failure to provide information, he added.

The union, which represents about 800 mill workers, has been in talks with KapStone since its before contract expired in May 2014. A major sticking points in bargaining talks has been whether workers can maintain their Kaiser Permanente health care plan at the previous level of coverage, rather than a high-deductible version the company has imposed.

The implemented contract offer included an immediate 4 percent general wage increase. After that, raises will alternate between 2 and 2.5 percent for each year of the eight-year contract. KapStone also will match each dollar an employee contributes to his or her 401(k) account, up to 3 percent of salary, and eventually, up to 5 percent.

Starting Jan. 1, union members lost their regular health care plan in place of a high-deductible plan, administered either through Kaiser Permanente or Blue Cross. Kapstone will pay the deductible in the first year by contributing to employees' health spending accounts. The company's contribution will fall incrementally to 33 percent by 2022.

KapStone argues that it's hands are tied by the Cadillac Tax -- a provision in Obamacare that imposes a 40 percent excise tax on employer-sponsored health coverage that exceeds $10,200 a year for individuals and $27,500 for families. According to KapStone, that could amount to $2.7 million in taxes on the health plan in just two and half years.

But now the Cadillac Tax has been postponed from 2018 to 2020. Minor argued that KapStone's analysis hasn't factored in that change.

And the union suggested that the company still has an incentive to bargain. It's stock price has fallen by half in the last year and the company likely can't afford another walkout again, Minor said. KapStone officials have previously said the strike cost the company $14 million, along with $24 million in lost shipments and $2 million in lost wages and benefits for Longview workers.

"We would rather resolve our differences at the bargaining table and not on the picket line, but it will take both parties to make that happen," he said.

Minor said the two sides haven't talked since workers rejected a KapStone offer for the fourth time two weeks ago.

Company officials said this week that it was unfortunate that their January offer was rejected by members.

"The offer included a significant $2,200 lump-sum payment along with the other wage and benefits increases that the National Labor Relations Board recently ruled were legally implemented by the company last year following a bargaining impasse," KapStone officials said in a statement to The Daily News.

"Irrespective of this ratification vote, the offer KapStone implemented in 2015 is very fair and competitive, particularly when compared with other contracts in our industry and our area," the company added.