A militant alliance of unionized workers and environmentalists is emerging out of the first national oil refinery strike since 1980. An Unfair Labor Practices strike began on Feb. 1 after talks broke down between the United Steel Workers (USW) and Royal Dutch Shell, which is the lead industry negotiator.
Over 6,800 workers have walked off the job in California, Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Washington state, Indiana and Ohio. In a phone interview, USW spokeswoman Lynne Baker Hancock told me that they are striking over fatigue, health and safety, contracting out, dangerously lean staffing levels and inadequate health care benefits. She says Big Oil isn’t bargaining in good faith, adding that the oil industry is “the richest, most powerful and most arrogant industry in the country.”
The union is receiving a lot of support from environmentalists including national organizations such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA and Oil Change International. 350.org issued a statement saying, “As we move towards a clean energy economy, there should be no throw-away communities and no throw-away workers. At 350.org we stand with refinery workers and call on oil companies to increase safety standards and begin the transition away from dangerous fossil fuels.”
Local grassroots greens are joining the picket lines. There’s “System Change, Not Climate Change,” an ecosocialist network in Los Angeles. There’s the Louisiana Bucket Brigades, an environmental watchdog group which collects air, water and soil samples in communities near refineries and chemical plants. Union-oriented environmental activists in The Labor Network for Sustainability are also calling for solidarity actions. (See http:// www.labor4sustainability.org)
Hancock says, “Environmentalists understand that if we can make the refineries safer, it protects the environment and the surrounding communities.” Refineries are among the most dangerous places to work in this country. Workers in the oil and gas industry are more than six times as likely to die on the job as the average American. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported there were 112 fatal injuries in the oil and gas industry in 2011. Over the five-year period from 2007 to 2011, the agency notes, there were 529 fatal injuries.
Hancock says the union wants protections against forced overtime and fatigue. She says that “people frequently work 12-hour shifts with no days off for more than a week at a time. Sometimes this goes on for several weeks.”
Former Texas District Judge Susan Criss, who handled the litigation around a horrifying refinery explosion, defended the union in an op-ed in the Galveston County Daily News. She asked:
“Why would a company refuse to guarantee workers the right to a safe workplace? Because the lives and safety of their workers do not matter enough to cut into profits. Because the people that do the work generating those profits do not matter.
As a judge, Criss presided over 4,016 legal claims arising from a grisly March 2005 explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas, that killed 15 workers and injured 180.
She notes that investigations into that disaster “revealed a culture of complacency toward worker safety at that refinery contributed to the disaster,” Criss wrote. “Worker fatigue resulting from excessive overtime hours was another problem cited.”
On Feb. 18, an explosion at a notyet struck Exxon-Mobil refinery shook Torrance, Cali. Ash (filled with fiberglass and wool) fell on area homes and schools. Four workers were injured.
Enraged USW Local 675 members got together with Occupy activists to respond. They dressed in hazmat suits and delivered a dump truck filled with manure to ExxonMobil’s local office. They staged a sit-in and demanded accountability from the company and local police.
Local 675 Secretary Treasurer Dave Campbell asked, “Why is it illegal to deposit organic material on corporate property but perfectly legal for a corporation to drop toxic materials on a community?”
The union has a big fight on its hands. This is an opportunity for environmentalists to help build an alliance between two social movements favoring the common good over greed.
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This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.
