BY JIM GOTESKY
CHICAGO - Socialist workers active in the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union met here January 4-5 to analyze world politics, discuss recent developments in the oil and chemical industries, and review their activities on the job and in the union over the last months.

Angel Lariscy, a member of the conference steering committee and a production worker at Witco Co. in Peoria, Illinois, opened the conference with a report outlining the importance of reaching young workers, and the real openings to win youth to the communist movement today. She pointed to the need for joint functioning with members of the Young Socialists in the union and on the job, and stressed that this collaboration should be on a completely equal footing.

Lariscy explained that the increased openness among youth to socialist ideas has developed prior to any qualitative change in the pace of the class struggle, or any strengthening of the labor movement. Oil and chemical workers, along with workers throughout the U.S., continue to be in retreat in face of a decade-and-a-half assault by the bosses. She pointed to growing evidence that the attack against oil workers, in particular, is growing sharper.

"During the last 15 years, according to the American Petroleum Institute, over 170 refineries closed their doors. For many of the remaining 160 facilities, 1995 ranks as one of the least profitable years ever. To reverse declining profit remaining facilities are being retooled and automated," Lariscy explained.

Offensive by oil bosses
She pointed out that as part of "downsizing" the oil refining industry, the employers are pushing to lower the wages and working conditions of oil workers. She pointed to how Tosco has risen to the status of fourth largest U.S.- based refiner as an example.

In 1996, Tosco bought the Marcus Hook British Petroleum refinery outside Philadelphia. The company demanded deep cuts from the OCAW there, and closed the refinery when the workers refused and went on strike. Many months later, after the union agreed to slash jobs by a third and take other deep concessions, the facility was reopened.

Tosco then bought Unocal's 76 Products' division for $1.8 million. The purchase will nullify the existing OCAW contracts in four California refineries. Lariscy cited a Bloomberg Business News article lauding Tosco. "Using a combination of bare-knuckled union negotiations and savvy oil purchasing, Tosco has wrung much higher profits from refining than competitors such as Unocal and Diamond Shamrock," it said.

Other oil bosses are following Tosco's progress closely. Sun Oil, for example, recently announced it would eliminate more than 200 union jobs without cutting production at its refinery across the street from Tosco's Marcus Hook facility.

These facts, according to Lariscy, underscore the openings for political discussion among oil workers. "Oil and chemical workers like other working people in the U.S. are engaged in a war of position with their capitalist bosses. The bosses push for concessions and workers push back. Big struggles will come in the future as the bosses, unsatisfied with small victories, aim to break workers' resistance, but discussion and ferment is developing now."

Selling socialist literature on the job
Lariscy discussed how to turn around the unnecessarily low sales of the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and Pathfinder books to co-workers by the socialist unionists. She explained that literature sales to oil workers fell far short of the goal set at the last national meeting of communist oil workers that each would sell an average of two books and pamphlets on the job per month.

The weak sales of communist literature, Lariscy said, could not be justified given the growing political discussion among oil workers who confront big changes in their industry and who are discussing explosive international events from the mass mobilizations of workers in Korea to the future of Social Security, affirmative action, and women's rights.

Jerry Freiwirth, a refinery worker at Shell Oil in Deer Park, Texas, presented a Tasks Report to the conference. Freiwirth's report continued discussion on the importance of working together jointly with Young Socialist members in industry and its connection to the transformation of the way communists function on the job and in the OCAW.

"A party of socialist workers in the OCAW and other industrial unions, who function in politics along the axis we have discussed, is enormously attractive to young people coming around," he explained.

"If we have not been doing consistent political and educational work on the job, it is too late when big political developments break. Right now, we need to be consistently selling Pathfinder books and the Militant on the job. As we do so we also bring co-workers with us to political events and we stand shoulder to shoulder with our co-workers in the guerrilla tussles that unfold on the job as the bosses probe for more concessions.

"We don't think that socialist workers can seriously affect the relationship of forces in this stage of the class struggle," Freiwirth continued, "but we do join every scrap of resistance, every opportunity that is real and genuine, and see everything within the framework of how it opens up politics so that we can bring communist ideas to fellow workers."

The conference adopted motions to reaffirm a standing goal to sell an average of two Pathfinder titles on the job per month per person, to make steady progress toward increasing the number of plants where more than one member of the Socialist Workers Party or the Young Socialists are working on the job together, and to help SWP branches sell the Militant newspaper and Perspectiva Mundial regularly at OCAW-organized plantgates. Conference participants also adopted goals to increase their financial contributions to the communist movement.

Jim Gotesky is a maintenance worker at the Unocal refinery in Rodeo, California, and a member of the OCAW.  
 
 
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