MARTINEZ, Calif. — Locked-out members of United Steelworkers Local 5 here are picketing 24/7 at the North and South Gates of Marathon’s biofuels refinery. Over 100 workers went on strike April 27 and then were locked out by Marathon bosses June 22 when the union offered to return to work unconditionally while contract talks continued.

Safety issues and Marathon’s moves to break the union are at the heart of this fight. The union has long demanded more staffing of process operators and other job categories and an end to mandatory overtime. Operator Vinnie Caragan told the Militant Oct. 1 that Marathon “has been chipping away, taking away safer staffing levels and conditions we had won in earlier years.” He pointed to control board positions and “outside operator tasks now handled by one worker” where at least two are needed.

The Marathon managers want to gut seniority and use nonunion workers and managers to carry out work formerly done by USW members. This means work being done by people more susceptible to company pressure to put profits ahead of safety.

Criff Reyes, a wastewater head operator and Marathon Local 5 union chair, told the Militant.Sept 24 that without seniority protections managers can bypass job bidding rights and discriminate against the more experienced and safety conscious union members. “Training of new refinery employees needs to be led by those who know the plant and how to operate safely, not inexperienced engineers and managers.”

The USW insisted on remaining part of the National Oil Bargaining Program with a common contract expiration date early in 2030, when thousands of other oil refinery workers’ contracts will expire. Marathon bosses rejected that, claiming the fact this refinery uses renewable feedstocks, not crude oil, makes it different. But workers respond that they all make the same dangerous product, diesel fuel.

Fourteen maintenance positions in the refinery were declared by Marathon bosses to be no longer in the USW bargaining unit. After the workers went on strike Marathon declared that 46 more workers — who handle ships at the refinery wharf, work with rail cars or in the lab — will no longer be in the union. Only the process operators will retain union representation.

Following two days of negotiations in September, “we paused the talks to await the outcome of unfair labor charges we have submitted to the National Labor Relations Board,” Reyes told the Militant.

Bosses refuse to negotiate

The USW charged Marathon with “Refusal to Bargain/Bad Faith Bargaining,” and other collective bargaining violations. “Twenty times we’ve come to the table, starting on Jan. 6, and 20 times not a single Marathon manager has joined the talks,” said Reyes. He noted that on each of those 20 occasions, Marathon attorney Brian Easley simply said “no” to every union proposal. Minneapolis-based Easley works for Jones Day, a pro-business firm with a reputation for helping corporations break unions.

Thanks to a substantial strike fund, Local 5 continues to help locked-out workers with rent and mortgage payments, along with car loans, utility bills and groceries. Every working USW refinery worker in the Bay Area contributes to this fund.

Poorly trained managers and strikebreakers have been operating the refinery at reduced rates. Several months into this fight the locked-out workers started picketing the refinery’s North Gate, near where Union Pacific tanker cars were delivered to the refinery, often more than 50 at a time. For an entire week in August UP rail workers refused to deliver or pick up cars; for several weeks UP bosses then did that work, coming from Nevada and elsewhere to scab on the workers. Now Marathon’s own strikebreakers are doing this work, but at a very reduced rate, 18 tanker cars a day.

Some unionists from area refineries and other workplaces have joined picketing in solidarity with the locked-out Marathon workers. The severity of the attacks here calls for a stronger response by the labor movement and nearby working-class communities.

Join the locked-out workers in Martinez at Solano Way and Arnold Industrial Way, or on Waterfront Road east of I-680 at the refinery’s North Gate.