Transatlantic solidarity

Workers Uniting, a global trade union alliance between Unite and the North American union, United Steelworkers, held a demonstration yesterday (February 12) outside the annual dinner of the International Petroleum Week of which Shell is a big sponsor and at which its CEO Ben van Beurden spoke.

 
The demonstration was held in solidarity with United Steelworkers oil refinery and chemical plant workers have walked out at nine sites across the USA – with strikes aimed at putting pressure oil companies to agree to a new national contract covering workers at 63 plants.

 
The strikes are the first held in support of a nationwide pay deal in the US since 1980. The plants on strike account for more than 10 per cent of US refining capacity.

 
USW’s international president Leo Gerard called for fairness.

 
“In the past, Shell has been a negotiating partner that helped achieve a settlement, and we hope that will remain the case,” Gerard said. “Our goal is to bargain an agreement that is fair to both sides.”

 
Beyond pay, Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke said that oil companies everywhere must clean up their act in terms of workplace safety.

 
“The continuing high level of workplace deaths and injury in US Oil refineries is unacceptable,” he said. “Unite joins our brothers and sisters in USW in demanding that the oil industry lives up to its rhetoric and provides safer working systems in refineries.”

 
Director of USW District 11 Emil Ramirez agreed.

 
Our strike is not only about wages and economy, but the safety of workers,” he said. “The oil industry is the richest in the world, yet higher profits seem to be more important to these companies than a safe work environment.”

 
Strikes are taking place at Exxon Mobil Corp’s refinery in Beaumont, Texas; two Marathon Petroleum refineries; LyondellBasell’s plant near Houston; Marathon’s refinery in Kentucky; Tesoro Corp’s Benicia and Martinez plants in California and its refinery in Anacortes, Washington.

 
The expiring three-year national contract covers 30,000 hourly paid workers at plants that together account for two-thirds of U.S. refining capacity.

 
The USW have said that it would not back down without getting a proper solution to the problems it faces.