MARTINEZ, Calif. — Workers walked off the job at Marathon Petroleum Corporation’s renewable fuels refinery here at 12:01 a.m. April 27. The company announced it was going to impose its “final” proposed contract on the 120 members of United Steelworkers Local 5 after negotiations reached an impasse. Instead, the workers went on strike.
Marathon claims the plant isn’t covered by the terms of the National Oil Bargaining Program because it doesn’t refine petroleum, but waste vegetable oils and tallow. This creates a fuel functionally identical to petroleum-derived diesel. Marathon bosses’ goal is to chisel out concessions not included in the national pattern. Known as Martinez Renewables, this is one of the largest renewable fuel refineries in the world, owned jointly with the Finnish company Neste.
Marathon also claims safety rules covering petrochemical refineries don’t apply here. The union says the national pattern should be implemented.
Marathon runs the operation understaffed, piling overtime on top of four 12-hour shifts, pushing workers to the point of fatigue. “Instead of hiring people and making it fair for everybody, and giving us the amount of people we need, they just want more out of us,” striker Greg Belcher told KQED radio on the picket line April 28.
The company is pushing to change the overtime rules to their advantage, Criff Reyes, a wastewater head operator and Marathon Local 5 union chair, told the Militant May 1. They want to save money by holding workers over whenever a ship pulls up to be off-loaded, rather than calling in a new crew. Striker Marwin Reyes, Criff’s brother, said, “We want any overtime after the 12-hour workday to be by choice, not mandatory. People have family, loved ones and responsibilities.”
“We do dangerous work,” Local 5 President Nick Plurkowski told a crowd of unionists at a rally in downtown here May 1. “We are fighting for safety.”
When the plant was being brought into production in 2023, a process preheater caught fire and temperatures climbed to 1,710 degrees Fahrenheit. Operator Jerome Serrano was engulfed in flames as he attempted to shut down the heater. Doctors gave him a 10% chance to survive and he spent seven months in a hospital burn unit. He lost fingers, an eye and his mobility, but has survived and is rehabilitating.
“Marathon says we don’t belong in the NOBP because we are not in fossil fuels. Do you think Jerome Serrano cares about the difference between being burned by corn oil or crude oil?” Criff Reyes said on the picket line May 1.
The strike is 100% solid. The plant is being run by engineers and managers, inexperienced and untrained, even by company standards. “Training normally takes months of direct instruction from a senior operator to qualify,” Criff Reyes told the Militant.
Solidarity
“We are getting a lot of support from the community,” he said. One woman came while I was there bringing bottled water for the strikers. A man came with two huge bags of sandwiches from a deli across the street.
William Normington, a worker at the Chevron refinery in nearby Richmond, joined the picket line April 29, along with his wife and daughter. “These companies are attacking us,” he told the Militant. “They are big money. We need to build solidarity against them.” Chevron negotiations are coming up, he said, and he’s on the bargaining committee.
USW Local 5 contacted workers locked out by British Petroleum at their Whiting, Indiana, refinery to offer support, and to learn from their fight, Normington said.
To bring solidarity, visit the picket line at the intersection of Solano Way and Arnold Industrial Way in Martinez. Send contributions to the strike fund to USW Local 5, PO Box 349, Martinez, CA 94553-0034.