WHITING–Contract talks between BP and United Steelworkers Union Local 7-1 are once again going down to the wire in what one top-ranking union official said could be one of the toughest negotiations in years.
The 1,085 union members continued to work at the BP Whiting Refinery on Sunday while union members at nine refineries in California, Texas, Kentucky and Washington went on strike at 12:01 a.m. Sunday morning, after talks broke down between the USW and Shell Oil Co.
The current three-year contract expired at that time.
USW spokeswoman Lynne Hancock said the international union decided which refineries would go on strike Sunday morning.
She said union members at BP Whiting Refinery will continue working on a 24-hour by 24-hour basis until negotiations disintegrate and one side refuses to come to the table.
“That hasn’t happened yet,” she said.
“For now no work stoppage is planned (at the Whiting refinery),” she said
According to the union, the remaining USW-represented refineries and oil facilities, including the one in Whiting, are operating under a rolling 24-hour contract extension.
“We told Shell that we were willing to continue bargaining for a fair agreement that would benefit the workers and the industry, but they just refused to return to the table,” said USW International Vice President Gary Beevers, who heads the union’s National Oil Bargaining Program.
“We had no choice but to give notice of a work stoppage,” USW International President Leo W. Gerard said.
Beevers said the work stoppage is about onerous overtime, unsafe staffing levels, dangerous working conditions, the daily occurrences of fires, emissions, leaks and explosions, a lack of opportunities for workers in the trade crafts, the amount of contract workers and the erosion of the workplace.
“Qualified and experienced union workers are replaced by contractors when they leave or retire,” Beevers said.
USW spokeswoman Lynne Hancock said negotiations are taking place at both the national and local levels simultaneously.
At the national level, the USW and Shell Oil Co. are discussing general items affecting all the locals, such as wages, benefits and working conditions. Local negotiations, which began in December, concern such issues as job bidding, local health and safety issues, work hours, grievance and arbitration proceedings and vacancy filling.
Hancock said there hasn’t been a national strike since 1980. She added talks usually continue to the last minute, including during negotiations in 2009 and 2012.
In 2012, several refineries were ready to walk out, but a tentative agreement was reached at the last minute.
Beevers wrote in a January newsletter to union workers that they should expect a tough bargaining session this time around.
“This is going to be the most difficult round of National Oil Bargaining that we have faced in years,” wrote Beevers, saying the industry is experiencing a “perfect storm” of events, including falling crude oil prices and more competition for oil products from new refineries in Saudi Arabia, Russia and China.
A BP spokesman said the company is ready if a strike is called.
“BP has trained and qualified replacement workers ready to take over operations in the event of a work stoppage. The workers were trained and qualified to the same standards as the hourly workers they would be replacing. In many cases, the people that would be operating the facilities as salaried employees were once operators themselves,” BP spokesman Scott Dean said.
Dean said the union employees make up about 57 percent of BP Whiting Refinery’s 1,862 employees
Hancock couldn’t get into details about negotiations, but pay raises appears to be one issue.
Hancock said the average salary for refinery workers is $70,000, not including overtime or benefits.
Dean said BP informed staff last week that it intends to freeze base pay across the company, in response to the challenging market environment in which BP operates. In Whiting, the freeze applies to all BP employees except for the union workforce, Dean said.
He said future wage increases for the USW members will be subject to the bargaining of the new contract.
Beevers said the union workers deserve a raise.
“Oil CEOs for BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell earned total compensation of $95.8 million in 2012. That’s great for them, but for them to say everybody who works for them is overpaid and does not deserve a raise is wrong,” Beevers wrote.
Hancock added, ” These workers put their lives in danger every day in those facilities. They’re responsible not just for the safety of the plant, but for the safety of the surrounding area as well.”
“BP is listening carefully to the USW concerns and negotiating in good faith to try to attain reasonable contract terms that would make our business safer, more efficient and increasingly competitive while ensuring employees are properly compensated for their work,” Dean said.
