“Cost cutting through outside contractors, unreasonable working hours, and inadequate training opportunities cannot be allowed to jeopardize lives.”
The United Steelworkers (USW) oil strike over demands for improved safety provisions has escalated as it entered its second week. Workers at BP refineries in Ohio and Indiana have joined the oil strike that began on 1 February at nine other refineries. From California to Kentucky, this is the first nationwide strike in the industry for 35 years.
The White House has urged a quick end to the strike through the “time-tested process of collective bargaining,” according to a statement.
There are now more than 5,000 USW members on what is called an unfair labor practice strike at 11 refineries owned by Shell, Marathon, Tesoro, BP and LyondellBasell. The strikes began after Shell failed to offer what the USW said were serious proposals to address the USW’s concerns about safety, onerous overtime and unsafe staffing levels.
Shell is leading the employer side of negotiations for a new national contract but talks have broken down.
In a solidarity letter to the USW International President, IndustriALL’s general secretary, Jyrki Raina, said, “We stand together with USW oil workers who have a fundamental right to be safe at work. Cost cutting through outside contractors, unreasonable working hours, and inadequate training opportunities cannot be allowed to jeopardize lives. We urge the oil companies to take serious consideration for their workers’ welfare and the safety of the oil industry as a whole.”
“IndustriALL Global Union, together with our affiliated trade unions in the oil industry throughout the world, stand firm in solidarity with all our USW brothers and sisters,” added Raina. (IndustriALL Global Union represents 50 million workers in 140 countries in the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors and is a force in global solidarity taking up the fight for better working conditions and trade union rights around the world.)
In addition to the health and safety issues, the USW unfair labor practice (ULP) strike is over the oil companies’ bad faith bargaining, including the refusal to bargain over mandatory subjects; undue delays in providing information; impeded bargaining; and threats issued to workers if they joined the ULP strike.
This week has also seen a delegation of striking refinery workers bring their campaign for a safer oil industry to Europe at meetings with allies from trade unions in the Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom.
The group includes oil strike workers from refineries owned by Shell, Marathon and Tesoro. Shell, which has taken the lead on bargaining for the European companies, has its headquarters in the Netherlands. The USW members met with leaders from the FNV oil workers union at Shell and LyondellBasell in the Netherlands and then traveled to the United Kingdom to meet with leaders from Unite the Union, the largest industrial union in Great Britain and Ireland.
USW on Tentative Deal with Oil Industry
The United Steelworkers (USW) reached a tentative agreement at the end of March on a new four-year contract with Shell Oil as a pattern agreement for the rest of the industry.
Safety issues were central to the negotiations, and the proposed agreement calls for the immediate review of staffing and workload assessments, with USW safety personnel involved at every facility. Daily maintenance and repair work in the plants was another critical issue that, too, was addressed.
The tentative agreement calls for yearly wages increases as well as maintaining the current health care plan cost-sharing ratio.
“Preserving “retrogression” clauses in our agreements was also an objective established by our policy conference and we accomplished that, too,” said USW International Vice President Gary Beevers, who oversees the union’s oil sector. “There was no way we could turn our backs to the accomplishments of prior contract negotiations.”
The next step in the bargaining process is for the company to put the terms of the settlement agreement on all of the Shell and Motiva bargaining tables. Our expectation is that other employers will offer the same terms at their local bargaining tables.
USW statement – An explosion and fire on 18 February at a refinery in Southern California underscores the United Steelworkers’ demand for improved safety conditions to protect both workers and communities.
The explosion at the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, Calif., occurred as 5,200 members of the United Steelworkers (USW) are conducting unfair labor practice strikes at 11 refineries across the country with safety as a major concern.
“Our members work in dangerous and too often deadly conditions,” said USW International President Leo W. Gerard. “While employers have reaped billions of dollars in profits over the past several years, they have done little to improve conditions for workers and surrounding communities.”
The union is bargaining for new labor agreements to cover about 30,000 workers throughout the oil industry at 65 refineries and hundreds of pipelines, terminals, petrochemical plants and other facilities.
“All too often these explosions kill and maim workers and envelop surrounding communities in toxic materials such as smoke, ash and gases,” said USW International Vice President Tom Conway, who is involved in the negotiations with the oil industry.
The blast at the 750-acre Southern California refinery occurred at about 8:50 a.m. Initial reports suggested that four people suffered minor injuries. News photos of the blast site show twisted metal, crushed vehicles and flying ash. Residents nearby reported feeling the ground shake after the blast and seeing smoke and flames.