Vol. 79/No. 10      March 23, 2015

Marty Poche

Strike support rally in Texas City, Texas, March 6 near Marathon oil refinery. Solidarity for oil workers’ fight for safety is expanding as first national walkout since 1980 stays solid.

Martin was describing the opening of the first national strike of oil workers since 1980 and the most important labor battle in the U.S. today, a fight that now involves nearly 7,000 workers at 12 refineries and three chemical plants.

The main issue in the strike is the safety of workers and the communities around the refineries. On the picket lines strikers describe how the company’s refusal to hire more workers means they are regularly forced to work long hours with inadequate rest time between shifts, leading to fatigue.

The union is also fighting to win back maintenance jobs crucial to safe operations, now done by contract workers.

The USW represents 30,000 oil workers at more than 200 plants.

Five weeks into the strike workers here are standing strong. “Not a single one of the 420 USW members at the refinery has crossed the picket line,” Martin told the Militant March 6.

Workers have maintained 24-hour pickets at the plant’s gates with regular union-organized delivery of firewood and food.

“I worked a nonunion job,” striker Jeff Camer said. “The boss told me I didn’t need a union. Then one day he fired me for no reason. Without a union you have nothing.”

The company cuts corners on routine maintenance. “Its about time we stand up. We’ve let a lot of stuff go over time,” said striker Trish Jackson.

“People have to understand this is not a strike, it’s a movement,” Brandon Marshall told the Militant. “This is the first time we have done something of this magnitude in over 30 years. It will take time but we will change, and the union will change.”

Some 1,100 members of Steelworkers Local 7-1 have been on strike against BP in Whiting, Indiana, since Feb. 8.

“One day longer, one day stronger,” chanted more than 150 strikers and supporters at a “Strike Picket Party” at the refinery March 9.

Family members, retirees and Steelworkers from the nearby ArcelorMittal steel mill, who are printing thousands of strike support yard signs, joined the expanded picketing.

“Don’t blow up the refinery before we come back to work!” strikers yelled at management and replacement workers.

At the “Rockers and Relief Fund 2015” event March 7, more than $7,200 was raised for strikers with pressing financial needs. Striker Ken Dianda told the Militant he organized friends and fellow unionists in rock bands to play at the affair. “We did it to show we can count on ourselves,” he said.

Dianda took the mic and asked, “Can we win?” The crowd of several hundred yelled back “Yes!”

Local 7-1 is organizing a rally in front of the BP headquarters in downtown Chicago March 19.

Articles in the bosses’ press attempt to deny and undercut the growing strength of the strike. The Wall Street Journal March 4 quoted a statement by Royal Dutch Shell claiming that by midsummer its Houston facility would be operating at normal staff levels with “newly trained employees who aren’t affiliated with the USW.”

In Anacortes, Washington, members of Steelworkers Local 12-591 on strike against Tesoro stop each vehicle at every shift change. A Skagit County judge March 4 rejected Tesoro’s request for a restraining order to end the traffic slowdown.

Picket Mike Ingrum’s leg was gashed when “a nonunion contractor refused to stop,” he told the Militant March 3.

“When a catastrophe occurs like in 2010 where seven union members were killed in an explosion here, then the company acts like they are interested in fixing problems at the plant,” said striker John Anderson.

In Houston, some 300 striking oil workers and supporters marched in front of Shell, Motiva and LyondellBasell headquarters March 6. Later that day 500 in Texas City marched to the Marathon refinery.

“The company wants to take labor out of the safety committees,” Chris Battles, who works at Shell in Deer Park, told the Militant. “But what happened here at Marathon can happen at Deer Park,” he said, referring to the 2005 explosion at the Texas City plant.

“I want to go home to my daughter at the end of the day,” said Kimberly Perez, 36, a technician at Motiva in Port Arthur. “That’s why it’s important to be in the union, to be safe. It’s important for the environment. It doesn’t just have to do with us, but everyone.”

On the picket line at the Martinez, California, Tesoro plant, Steve Croft, 38, said that a year ago he and another operator received extensive acid burns when improperly installed tubing burst.

As union maintenance workers retired, “Tesoro stopped replacing them and began contracting the work out. We need trained people to do the maintenance,” Croft said.

Mitchel Rosenberg, a member of USW Local 10-1 in Philadelphia; Josefina Otero, a member of USW Local 7139-05 in Washington, Pennsylvania; Ilona Gersh and Anne Parker in Whiting, Indiana; Danielle London in Houston; Mark Shaeffer in Martinez, California; Bill Arth in Los Angeles; and Edward Foote in Anacortes, Washington, contributed to this article.
 
 
Related articles:
On the Picket Line
Australia unionists protest wage, benefit cuts
W.Va. unionists march against ‘right to work’ bills
 
 
 
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