Vol. 79/No. 13      April 13, 2015

“I thought we’d be going back to work after the national settlement with Shell,” Rudy Ramirez, a lab technician with 20 years experience, told the Militant. “I told them, ‘Nope, we’ll go back after we’ve settled on local issues.’”

“They want to shut the lab down,” Ramirez said. “We would all be replaced by contractors.” The company wants to eliminate several job classifications, said Chad Culbertson, president of the local.

“BP/Husky wants a management-rights clause to choose what happens to jobs that become available through retirement or resignation,” said Culbertson, who works in the plant. “They could pick someone they like, without seniority even being a factor. Or they could decide to eliminate the job that opens up and combine it with other jobs.”

For that reason, Culbertson said, “negotiations are still going forward, but at a snail’s pace.”

Understaffing and forced overtime are key issues, he said. Under the “fatigue policy” in place now, the company can force employees to work 21 days straight before giving them two days off. “So a tired worker could make a mistake and wipe out the whole refinery. When you’re on call, you have to respond in 20 minutes and be at the plant in an hour, or have an occurrence against you. I keep telling the company, ‘We say safety. You say economics. Just hire more people.’”

The local has been reaching out to unions in the area. Culbertson addressed United Auto Workers Local 12 Jeep workers last week to thank them for their ongoing support and explain why his local is still on strike. “Local 12 members have helped with picketing and donated food, money and other support for our members,” he said. A front-page article on the meeting was printed in the March 13 Toledo Union Journal.

“It’s about safety,” Culbertson said. “Most everyone understands that. I went to the teachers union headquarters and asked them, ‘Do you have family that lives near the refinery? If you do, you should support us.’”

While the United Steelworkers organize the operators, the company employs a large number of contract workers, many of them members of other unions. “On any day shift before the strike,” Culbertson said, “we’d have around 100 of our local members in the plant, and there would be 300 to 1,000 contractors. We’re way outnumbered.”

Many of them, even members of other unions, are working while the Steelworkers are on strike, he said.

“I was hired through an internal bid as a Steelworker electrician. Everyone else in the electrical shop is in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,” said Michael Mireles, who has worked here for 17 years. “They are working now, crossing our picket line.”

“The strike has brought a lot of camaraderie among the strikers,” said striker Deb Dunn, an operator at BP/Husky for 26 years. “When we used to report to work, we’d only see a couple of other union members we were relieving. Now we come down to the hall, and we’re meeting a whole bunch of people we’ve never really known before. Especially the younger ones.”

“There’s a lot of solidarity between members,” said Culbertson. “A brother said his furnace broke down. So we called around and that day another member was at his house fixing it.”

The union hall is packed on Friday nights. “We have big dinners — pizza or a fish fry — and we encourage everyone to bring their families,” Dunn said. “We give haircuts in the hall. We’re doing a blood drive now for the Red Cross.”

Strikers come to the hall with family members to get food from the pantry, have a bowl of hot chili or stew from slow-cookers lined up against the wall before they go out to the picket line, sign up for picket duty, apply for emergency financial aid or just hang out.
 
 
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Oil workers stay strong against BP, Marathon, LyondellBasell
DC transit workers speak out against bosses’ safety violations
On the Picket Line
Engineer in Lac-Mégantic disaster faces frame-up trial
 
 
 
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