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PASADENA, Texas - Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW) Local 4-227 and the Texans United Education Fund, an environmental group, have accused Crown Central Petroleum Refinery of violating the Clean Air Act since the company locked out OCAW members 22 months ago. Crown has emitted almost three times as much sulfur dioxide, a major component of smog, since the lockout began compared with before.
At a November 21 press conference in front of Crown Central Petroleum Refinery, officials of the OCAW and Texans United attacked the company's claim that its pollution releases have actually decreased. The two organizations pointed to data based on Crown's own reports to the Harris County Pollution Control Department and the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC).
"Crown has tried to pit the workers against the community, but what we're finding is that we have a lot in common," stated Dean Cook, a leading activist among the locked-out Crown workers. "Environmentalists don't threaten our jobs; they just want the company to operate safely, like we do. We both want to protect people against Crown's corporate greed."
The Crown Central refinery, founded 80 years ago, is one of the oldest in the region and has a long record of polluting. Even before the lockout, it was one of the few refineries along the Houston Ship Channel that received a "grandfathered" variance from the TNRCC, allowing higher levels of emissions than is normal.
During a 40-month period - 20 months before the lookout and 20 months after - Crown released 1,649 tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. Some 1,208 tons, or 73.3 percent of this total was released in the second 20 months.
Crown Central Petroleum officials locked out 252 members of OCAW Local 4-227 during a contract fight on Feb. 5, 1996. Although the locked-out unionists have maintained a 24-hour presence in a parking lot across the street from the refinery, production has continued uninterrupted by managers and scab contract workers.
On July 21, 1997, a coalition of environmental groups and families living in Pasadena, Texas, where the plant is located, filed a lawsuit against Crown for more than 10,000 violations of the Clean Air Act.
Another lawsuit has been filed by 77 residents and property owners of Pasadena who live near the refinery asking for $50 million in punitive damages and unspecified compensatory damages for numerous releases of toxic chemicals.
Residents around the refinery suffer from skin rashes, breathing problems, severe headaches and dizziness, eyesight problems, digestive ailments and other physical and mental conditions.
MSI workers win support in strike for union rights
MARIETTA, Ohio - About 300 supporters of workers on strike
at Magnetic Specialty, Inc. (MSI) in Marietta, Ohio, rallied
and marched through town to the plant November 22. The
gathering ended with a meal of beans, cornbread, and venison at
the strike headquarters in a field across from the plant.
MSI makes magnetic strips used in refrigerators and in the automotive industry. In August 1995, MSI workers voted 65 to 33 to join the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). After MSI manager Gary Murphy refused to recognize the union, the workers struck MSI in March 1997. When the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in October ordered MSI to bargain with the union, Murphy agreed to talk and then fired 16 of the strikers.
Strikers speaking at the rally cautioned that in spite of Murphy's willingness to negotiate they must continue to fight to win broader support in the face of Murphy's ongoing attacks and to show other employers that solidarity works.
Picket duty is organized in rotating shifts at the six plant gates, three to a gate. Pickets have been harassed by local police. Two strikers were recently acquitted in jury trials on charges of menacing.
The union is distributing buttons supporting the 16 workers fired "for standing up to Gary Murphy." Rick Farley is one of the 16 and a 40-year-old maintenance mechanic with eight years at MSI. He said, "MSI is trying to weaken the union. But we all walked out together and we'll all walk back in together."
A support group of spouses of the strikers has organized meals and parties to aid and boost the morale of the strikers and their families. It also organized floats and distribution of literature at regional fairs in September and October.
Ola Acoff was one of about 20 workers from LTV Steel representing several locals at the Cleveland Works who came by bus to the solidarity action. "Everybody was encouraged by the turnout of USWA support for the strike," she said. Donations totaling more than $21,000 were presented to the strikers by unions and other participants in the rally from throughout the region of Ohio, northern West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.
Sacked Liverpool dockers reject settlement offer
MANCHESTER, England -Liverpool dockers voted 213 to 97 to
reject a 28,000 ($47,000) per person settlement proposed by
the Liverpool port authority Mersey Docks and Harbour Company
(MD&HC) October 23.
The vote, taken by mail-in ballot at the insistence of the national leadership of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), was the second majority vote rejection of such a settlement. The dockers have always maintained the dispute will not end until all are back at work. A vote is taken at weekly union meetings to verify that the majority wish to continue the struggle.
The dispute began in 1995 when Torside, an independent stevedoring company, sacked 80 workers when it decided to close. The company had run into resistance from workers following an overtime pay dispute. Leaders of the local TGWU branch demanded the 80 workers sacked by Torside be taken on by MD&HC, the port authority and owner of the docks. MD&HC workers were sacked when they refused to cross the Torside picket lines.
For 18 months before the sackings, dockers had been fighting MD&HC over irregular working hours. Work is now done by the tide rather than the clock to turn ships around faster. The 329 MD&HC workers were replaced by 150 workers employed by Drake Port Management Services. The replacement workers do not receive bonuses, as MD&HC employees do. MD&HC claims record profits and doubled productivity.
The price of such productivity for the replacement workers is clear in THE DART, a Drake employees newsletter: "Here we are, nearly two years after the old workforce walked out of the gate, and still we are having to put up with practices such as sixteen hour shifts, odd shifts, i.e. 0300 until 0700 [3:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m.] with the threat of the sack if workers do not comply. "
Patti Iiyama, member of Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Local 4-227 in Houston; Mike Fitzsimmons, member of USWA Local 188, and Janice Ortega, member of USWA Local 2265, in Cleveland; and Liz Keighley in Manchester, England, contributed to this column.