Shell

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, February 5, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Story:

• Register now for the Future of Railroads: Safety, Workers, Community & the Environment Conferences: Richmond, California (March 14, 2015) and Olympia, Washington (March 22, 2015) - railroadconference.org

USW Refinery Workers Strike News:

• Greens get behind striking oil workers - By John Light, Grist, February 3, 2015
• In Stand for People and Planet Over Profit, Green Groups Back Oil Worker Strike - By Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams, February 3, 2015
• Local Union President Says National Oil Refinery Strike Isn’t About Wages, It's About Safety - By Sydney Brownstone, The Stranger, February 2, 2015 [USW video]
• Martinez: Tesoro refinery among nine plants where strikes planned - By George Avalos and Rick Hurd, Bay Area News Group / San Jose Mercury News, February 2, 2015
• Refinery workers in Martinez, elsewhere go on strike - By Michael Cabanatuan, San Francisco Chronicle, February 1, 2015
• Solidarity with Striking Refinery Workers - By David Turnbull, Oil Change International, February 2, 2015
• Strike negotiators back at the table Tuesday night - By LM Sixel, FuelFix, February 3, 2015
• Tesoro Refinery workers strike over work conditions, contract - By Laura Anthony, KGO ABC 7, February 2, 2015
• Tough talk from Shell, union as refinery pay talks resume - By Erwin Seba, Reuters, February 3, 2015
• United Steelworkers stage downtown Houston protest at LyondellBasell HQ - By LM Sixel, FuelFix, February 3, 2015
• For bargaining updates call 888-429-4217

Crude by Rail:

• Safety Board Says Transport Canada Must Do More To Keep Railways Safe - By John Kristensen, Railroaded, February 2, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Drilling contractor may cut 2,000 jobs - By Jennifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 30, 2015
• Economist: A short-term ‘bloodbath’ in oil and gas; More layoffs - By Jennifer Hiller, Collin Eaton and Ryan Holeywel, FuelFix, February 2, 2015
• More oil jobs threatened as cheap crude persists - By Ryan Holeywell, FuelFix, February 2, 2015
• Oil rig count falls by 94 in biggest drop since 1987 - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 30, 2015
• Russian pipe maker OAO TMK laying off at Pennsylvania plants - Associated Press, FuelFix, February 2, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• Greenwire: Groups pressure Congress to invest in passenger rail, transit infrastructure - Environmental Law & Policy Center, January 30, 2015 [related] Report: Long-term Federal Funding Needed in Passenger and Transit Rail Projects - By Anika Reed and Jasmine Whittington, Capital News Service, January 30, 2015
• MACED statement on announcement of President Obama’s proposed budget plan to aid Central Appalachian communities - By Ivy Brashear, Renew Appalachia, February 2, 2015
• New Report Showcases America’s Rail, Transit Manufacturing Opportunity - By the Blue-Green Alliance, Mass Transit Magazine, February 1, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Crossing the River of Fire: The liberal attack on Naomi Klein and ‘This Changes Everything’ - By John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark, Monthly Review, February 2015
• EPA should strengthen the standards for clean air - By Heather Albright, Sacramento Bee, January 31, 2015
• In an Age of Soulless Mass Production, the Artisan Craft Worker Still Lives On - By W. Rand Smith, In These Times, February 2, 2015
• Nuclear power plant’s security changes mixed one year after ‘unusual’ death - By Joe Jordan, Nebraska Watchdog, February 2, 2015
• Review: Another Politics by Chris Dixon - By Alexander Reid Ross, Earth First! Newswire, February 1, 2015
• UWAC: More than 5500 trees uprooted in one month! - La Via Campesina, February 2, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, February 2, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s. The IWW is not affiliated with the United Steelworkers Union.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Announcement from the United Steel Workers:

(As of Midnight, January 31, 2015) the oil industry rejected the union’s last national proposal. Based on the lack of progress and respect at the table, I regret to report that strike action has been initiated at nine locations nationally beginning at midnight tonight.

One of the locations selected for strike is the Tesoro Golden Eagle Refinery (Martinez, California). A few minutes (later) the union offered Tesoro a safe and orderly shutdown, which the company has accepted. The bargaining committee will be communicating the details of the shutdown to the bargaining unit as they become available.

In the mean time, everyone should report to work as scheduled until notified by your bargaining committee otherwise. We know this is a stressful time for all our members. Please continue to stay focused and perform your duties as safely as possible.

All other locations have been offered a 24 hour rolling extension.

We can expect more locations to be targeted very soon if we don’t see substantial progress in the very near future. Everyone should clear out their personal belongings in preparation for a strike at all locations.

For bargaining updates call 888-429-4217

Jim Payne, Secretary-Treasurer, USW Local 5

Strike News:

• In Major Walkout, U.S. Oil Workers Demand Safety, Fair Treatment - By Ari Phillips, Truthout, February 2, 2015
• Oil Workers in U.S. on First Large-Scale Strike Since 1980 - Bloomberg, reposted by Earth First! Newswire, February 1, 2015 [updates]
• Offical United Steelworkers Union Strike Bulletin - Link

Appeal for Solidarity from a Rank and File Member:

If you have time we would like to start calling and emailing people of the community as well as emailing Kory Judd Chevron Richmond refinery Manager to let them know how you feel about the current actions of Chevron. Here is a list of people to call or email at the bottom. Please be professional when voicing your opinions. Let Kory Judd know how you feel about his lies about safety of the community Chevron will lose the trust of the community again if they run with replacement workers.

Chevron will be running with replacement workers that are fraudulently qualified and do not know the plants or the emergency procedures used to keep the plants from blowing up.

Tesoro has accepted an offer from USW workers to shut down their refinery safely during the strike. Why is Chevron not doing the right thing again? They are not putting safety first, they are putting PROFITS first again.

If USW workers go on strike the community will be at risk with the replacement workers. The Chevron fire department will lose their coverage because chevron relies on volunteer firefighters who are USW workers. They cannot put a fire out without them and will be risking the community again by not having adequate coverage. They will be putting the lives of the community at risk and when a fire breaks out and are expecting Richmond Fire and surrounding agencies to respond to put it out.

All this in the name of profits and unfair bargaining practices!

TELL THEM YOU WANT ANSWERS!!!!

Thank you

Robert watts (a concerned rank & file USW member)

• Kory Judd Chevron Richmond Refinery Manger - KDJU@chevron.com
• Mayor Tom Butt - 510-412-6503
• City of Richmond Fire department - 510-307-0848
• Public Information Officer/Media Relations, Richomnd Police, Sergeant N. Abetkov - desk line: 510-620-6851 media line - 510-621-1751 or Andrea Baily of Community Engagement - 510-242-5405

Other News of Interest:

• (The Bosses Claim) Refinery strikes unlikely to move gasoline, oil prices - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, February 1, 2015
• Gasoline futures up on fear refinery strikes curtailing supplies, analysts say - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, February 2, 2015
• Labor Network for Sustainability Calls for Support for Oil Strikers - By Joe Uehline, Labor Network for Sustainability, February 2, 2015
• “What Happens Offshore Stays Offshore” – Gulf of Mexico Oil Industry Veteran Speaks Out - By Cherri Foytlin, Bridge the Gulf Project, January 29, 2015
• Our Lives Are at Stake - Shell Strike of 1973: Workers Fight for Health and Safety - By Berry Weisberg - July 1973

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

By Jess Worth; lead image by Jenna Pope - New Internationalist, November 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

In September 2014, the $860 million Rockefeller Foundation made an historic announcement. Timed to coincide with massive marches for climate action all over the world, the fund revealed it was going to divest from fossil fuels. Following in the footsteps of the World Council of Churches, the British Medical Association and Stanford University, the latest major institution to make such an announcement is also the most symbolic. Because the Rockefeller fortune owes its very existence to oil.

The Rockefeller story is also the story of the rise and fall of the first ‘oil major’. Standard Oil, founded by John D Rockefeller in 1870, soon came to control the burgeoning US oil industry, from extraction to refining to transportation to retail.

It built an unprecedented monopoly that ultimately became so publicly despised that the US government stepped in and broke it up – birthing Exxon, Mobil and Chevron, among others. But by then, Standard had already set the Western world on a path to oil dependence that we are still shackled to, chain-gang-style, today.

The forced break-up created the Rockefeller millions. A century later, those millions are being used to make a dramatic point: we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the oil age.

Press Release, Fuel Fix - September 16, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Shell Oil Co. and Motiva Enterprises have agreed to pay nearly $4.5 million in overtime back wages to 2,677 current and former chemical and refinery employees after federal regulators found violations of federal labor law.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s wage and hour division conducted investigations at eight Shell and Motiva facilities in five states including Texas, Alabama, California, Louisiana and Washington and found that the companies failed to pay the workers for the time they spent at mandatory pre-shift meetings. Investigators also found that the companies failed to record the time that the workers spent at the meetings.

Of the those owed back wages, 634 work in Deer Park and 554 work in Port Arthur, according to the Labor Department.

The companies required the workers to come to the meetings before the start of their 12-hour shifts, according to the Labor Department.

Neither Shell or Motiva immediately returned calls for comment.

“Employers are legally required to pay workers for all hours worked,” U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez said in a written statement. “Whether in the international oil industry, as in this case, or a local family-run restaurant, the Labor Department is working to ensure that responsible employers do not experience a competitive disadvantage because they play by the rules.”

To find out if you’ve got back wages coming, call 1-866-4US-WAGE (487-9243) or the Labor Department’s Houston District Office at 713-339-5500.

By Richard Mellior, AFSCME Local 444, retired - Facts for Working People, November 27, 2013

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

In the aftermath of the crash, polls have indicated that as much as 36% of the US population looks more favorably to socialism, and a recent Pew survey of America's youth between 18 and 29 found that more have a positive view toward Socialism than they do toward Capitalism, Socialism: 49% Capitalism 46%.  While there is no doubt what people mean by socialism varies I think it is fairly accurate to say it means a more egalitarian society, or more accurately, a more just social system.

The problem is that capitalism cannot deliver these goods.  Capitalism is an exploitive system of production in which production or the production of social needs is set in to motion on the basis of profit, on how it can enrich that small minority that own the means of producing human needs and the production process itself. Human needs are secondary as are the needs of the natural world.

Hunger, disease, war, these are the by-products of capitalism.  But so is environmental degradation as land, water, and the natural world is simply there to be exploited regardless of the long-term damage. I read now that Chevron is fighting back against an $18 billion judgment against the company by Judge Nicolas Zambrano in Ecuador. The ruling supported villagers, claims that Texaco had contaminated an oil field in northeastern Ecuador between 1964 and 1992. Texaco was bought by Chevron. Ecuador's Supreme Court has since reduced the amount to $9.5 billion.  Chevron attorneys have accused the US lawyer for the villagers, Steven Donziger, of “orchestrating an international criminal conspiracy by using bribery and fraud in Ecuador to secure a multibillion-dollar pollution judgment against the oil company.”

Meanwhile, BP which is responsible for the catastrophic spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has been accused of lying about the amount of the spill and is resisting paying reparations saying claimants who were not harmed are demanding payment.

No amount of court theatrics will stop the catastrophic environmental destruction that will at some point reach a tipping point with vast swathes of the planet becoming uninhabitable. Life on this planet cannot survive the ravages of capitalism forever, or more accurately, a system of production which places profit above all else and in which the means of producing humanity’s needs like energy, are owned by private individuals. We have absolutely no say in how decisions about these issues are made, decisions that have life and death consequences for all of us.

By ITF Climate Change Working Group - International Transport Workers’ Federation, August 4, 2010

This report, now more than a decade old, was remarkably forward-thinking for its time (except for the uncritically positive assessment of Carbon Capture and Storage and Cap-and-Trade, positions the authors would likely now no longer hold. It also, interestingly, includes in an appendix, the delegate of one union affiliate, Robert Scardelletti, President of the Transportation Communications International Union (TCU), an affiliate of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), from the US, who dissented from this report's conclusions, because it's green unionist orientation would "destroy jobs", a position held by the most conservative unions in the AFL-CIO.

From the introduction:

Climate change is the biggest single challenge ever faced by human civilization. Human economic activity has put so much carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) into the atmosphere that serious global warming is already happening. As a society, we have no choice but to reduce these emissions drastically in order to stand a good chance of avoiding potentially catastrophic changes in our climate. Moreover, emissions from transport are rising faster than emissions from any other sector and in some cases the increase in transport emissions is counteracting emissions reductions achieved in other sectors. Lowering transport emissions presents a series of unique and formidable challenges.

The good news for transport workers is that a serious approach to emissions reductions will create new opportunities for quality employment, particularly in public transport, railways (both passenger and freight), transport infrastructure, road repair, and in developing clean transport technologies. But failure to act on climate change will have the opposite effect.

Read the text (PDF).

By Berry Weisberg - OCAW 1-591, July 1973
Background Information by Douglas W. Erlandson - USW Local 12-591

On January 21st, OCAWIU President Bob Grospiron called over 4000 Shell OCAW members from 5 oil refineries and 3 chemical plants, out on strike. Then made a nationwide appeal to the public to boycott Shell Oil while the union continued its fight over the right to bargain health and safety issues.

The union was seeking:

• 1) The establishment of a Joint Union-Management Health & Safety Committee
• 2) Wanted the Union committee workers paid while performing official committee duties
• 3) The right to call in independant Health & Safety inspectors
• 4) Access to all Company information on both death and disease rates
• 5) Annual Company medical examinations provided at Company expense

As a tactic for the 1973 strike, OCAW employed the first major "corporate campaign" in U.S. history. OCAW forged alliances with the scientific, academic, environmental and labor communities to fight Shell’s position that it would not bargain over health and safety. The union spent nearly half a million dollars to advertise a nationwide boycott of Shell and to educate the public about the need to protect the health of workers and the communities.

Even though 12 other major oil companies had already signed contracts that provided for the new joint union- management health and safety committees, they assisted Shell by buying their gasoline and blacklisting Shell's strikers. The oil industry's thinking was the new joint H&S committees would get in the way of production and profits.

Shell's corporate spokesman, J.H. Walter called the unions joint H&S committee 'another attempt at featherbedding since the workers could then decide how long they could safely work in the refineries and chemical plants.

Moreover, Shell stated that health & safety was none of the oil workers' business: "We are legally responsible for the health and safety of Shell employees in the workplace and this responsibility cannot be shared". The truth was the oil companies didn't want to give up control in this area.

From 1963-1969, Shell used caged canaries as 'safety devices' at their Houston chemical plant.(true story, no joke!) The canary's job was to detect the presence of carbon monoxide. If the canary died, it was time for the workers to leave. Shell went through a lot of canaries, OCAW was claiming by the time the canary died, the workers would already have been exposed.

The union was also seeking the right to inspect company records and financial reports of the pension funds Shell administered and to be able to grieve the company's arbitrary actions with regard to disability pensions. (The union suspected Shell's pension fund was under funded.) One Anacortes member who worked for Shell for 17 years, was certified by two doctors as being disabled, yet Shell wouldn't allow him disabled benefits even though he met the 15 year employment requirement. For the union, this was an item that needed to be addressed.

The International Representative assigned locally was Virgil Coragliotti, with Representative Tom Burkholder assisting on occasion. Don Yates was the Shell unit chairman and the committee members were Gil Nuessen, Wes Shull, F. D. Ferguson, Bob Melton Sr. Jerry Vrooman was the Local President and Jim Burgess was the financial secretary.

Picket pay was $25 a week. The 1-591 union brothers at General Chemical and Texaco assessed their monthly dues to help support the Shell members. Financial support was also received regularly from the Ferndale OCAW 1-590 local. Because Shell Oil’s daily production was unaffected and they didn’t lose any profits during the strike, the strikers received unemployment benefits under what was then known as the ‘dark plant rule’. Not surprising, Shell Oil later lobbied to get that section of the unemployment law changed.

About a week before the strike Snelsons’ had contracted with Shell to do maintenance work on a recently shutdown furnace. Their plan was to use the Boilermakers union, Local 104 out of Seattle. OCAW had gotten wind of it and a group of about 60 Shell brothers were on site waiting for the 14 building trades members when they attempted to cross the picket line, being led through by Bill Snelson. Several Shell picketers became so upset that they turned over both of Snelsons’ trucks and trailers. At the same time, someone smashed out Snelson's rear window. Out of fear, Snelson romped on the gas throwing John Garner, who was standing in front of him, onto the hood of his car. Garner was able to roll off as Snelson bolted on through. The Sheriff was immediately called.

Fred Nelson, Bob Melton and Charlie Pyburn were identified as the lead individuals involved and were fired. Later, after two days in court, Judge Deierlein had Melton and Pyburn jailed, then sharply criticized Shell management for not maintaining better communications with the union and local law enforcement officials in trying to prevent emotional blow-ups. Later Snelson took OCAW 1-591 to court and won $6700 for the damage done to his vehicles. Shell also fired Virgil Avey for breaking windsphrlds with his picket sign. While the other three were unable to get their jobs back, Fred Nelson was eventually rehired. Old time Union members refer to this incidence as the "Day of the Windstorm."

OCAW also had trouble with the Teamster's Union from Seattle. The same teamster leadership that was scabbing on the United Farm Workers, had ordered their drivers to disregard the picket line established by OCAW. And since there was an injunction limiting the number of pickets to two per gate, the union was unable to do much about the Teamsters pushing through with their trucks.

To keep in the health and safety issue in front of the public, OCAW had teams that traveled the northwest speaking to the news media and public about the need for work place safety. Shell later admitted the mobile speakers bureaus were very effective.

Finally, Shell, in the face of public pressure, bargained a compromised health and safety clause as well as meeting the union's demand allowing the pension fund to be reviewed and grieved if necessary. On June 1st the strike was officially ended.

Download (PDF).