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Thousands of oil refinery workers are on strike over health and safety. They cite outsourcing, short staffing, and forced overtime that produces dangerous fatigue--in a job where mistakes can be fatal. (Photo: USW)
Thousands of oil refinery workers are on strike over health and safety, demanding stronger measures to protect workers and surrounding communities from refinery hazards.
Workers cite outsourcing, short staffing, and forced overtime that produces dangerous fatigue--in a job where mistakes can be fatal.
Five days into the strike, Shell Oil, which leads the table for the employers, reportedly offered a settlement that the union’s bargaining team was considering, but by evening, the union had rejected the offer.
The Steelworkers represent 30,000 oil industry workers, at 63 refineries plus related oil terminals, pipelines, and petrochemical facilities. Together they produce 65 percent of the U.S.‘s oil.
Agreements covering most of these members are bargained at a national table with the large oil companies. Once a national pact is reached, local unions will hash out contract details with each company.
To lead this strike, which began February 1, the union selected nine strategic refineries in Texas, Kentucky, Washington, and California, where the strike would pack a special punch. Factors in the choice included particularly harsh employers and sites with strong member participation.
Five of the nine are in Texas, the U.S.‘s top oil-producing state. Striking workers converged on Houston yesterday to protest outside Shell’s corporate headquarters.
So far 3,800 workers are off the job. Non-striking refinery locals are getting 24-hour contract extensions each day. But the unions says, if need be, it will bring more sites out.
It’s the first national refinery strike since 1980. Back then workers at all represented refineries went out together, and stayed out for three months before they got a deal.
When oil refinery workers walk onto the job, they enter a world of hazards. Any mistakes or malfunctions can harm workers inside--and also the surrounding community.
Workers know the worst-case scenario all too well. An explosion at a BP refinery outside Houston in 2005 killed 15 workers and injured nearly 200. The refinery, later sold to Marathon, is one of the facilities where workers are striking.
Regulators found BP responsible for willfully violating safety protocols, and enacted millions in fines. Four years later, OSHA found 700 more violations, and enacted $87 million in fines for not correcting the violations that caused the explosion.
“We have a lot of forced overtime,” Dave Martin, vice president of the local striking the Marathon refinery in Catlettsburg, Kentucky. “That was one of the main issues in the Texas explosion: people working overtime and not making the right decisions.”
To avoid these types of accidents, in national bargaining the Steelworkers are trying to secure stronger safety protocols and keep management from subcontracting maintenance work.
Though there’s already some contract language to avoid working tired, the union says managers skirt the rules. For instance, workers are supposed to have rest days after double-digit consecutive days working--but Martin says it’s not happening.
“As you get older, it takes more time to recover,” he says. “A day off here and there helps, but it doesn’t heal you up enough to where you are 100 percent.”
And when employees leave, managers aren’t filling empty spots; they’re forcing others to pick up the slack with overtime. “If they staffed this refinery, it would create 150-200 full time jobs in our community,” Martin says.
“The fatigue issue has been a very big problem in this industry,” says Jim Savage, president of a Pennsylvania refinery local. Though his local isn’t on strike (the refinery recently changed owners), he’s been at the national bargaining table. And, he says, “that problem has consistently gotten worse. These companies are trying to run very lean.”
Though oil prices are low, oil companies are still raking in the profits. The big five, including Shell, made almost $90 billion in 2014.
“Let’s face it,” Savage says. “This is the wealthiest, most powerful industry in the history of the world.”
The strike has garnered support from national environmental groups and activists such as Oil Change International and 350.org founder Bill McKibben, who recognize that workers advocating for their own safety are also protecting the public. Oil companies have a long, sordid record of causing spills and accidents by cost-cutting.
Martin reports that the Catlettsburg strike has found local support, too. The union is receiving messages of solidarity from neighbors. Community members and businesses have been bringing food and supplies to the picket line.
“They know that the oil industry makes billions,” he said. “They know the dangers in the facility, what goes on day in and day out. They want us in there.”
While the refinery workers strike, managers are operating the facilities.
Another key safety issue in bargaining is that maintenance work, originally done by union members, is now being contracted out. The union emphasizes that full-time employees receive health and safety training from both the company and the union. Lower-paid, outsourced workers don’t.
While raises are being bargained too, the union stresses they aren’t the central issue. The Steelworkers do want the companies to lower the out-of-pocket caps on workers health insurance, which can amount to thousands of dollars.
As the strike goes on, the Steelworkers will have to weigh bringing more locals out on strike to increase pressure. “If they don’t get serious and there is no agreement,” Savage says, “It’s gonna happen.”
UPDATE: This article has been slightly updated from its original version, to reflect the news that USW rejected Shell’s offered deal on February 5.
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Thousands of oil refinery workers are on strike over health and safety, demanding stronger measures to protect workers and surrounding communities from refinery hazards.
Workers cite outsourcing, short staffing, and forced overtime that produces dangerous fatigue--in a job where mistakes can be fatal.
Five days into the strike, Shell Oil, which leads the table for the employers, reportedly offered a settlement that the union’s bargaining team was considering, but by evening, the union had rejected the offer.
The Steelworkers represent 30,000 oil industry workers, at 63 refineries plus related oil terminals, pipelines, and petrochemical facilities. Together they produce 65 percent of the U.S.‘s oil.
Agreements covering most of these members are bargained at a national table with the large oil companies. Once a national pact is reached, local unions will hash out contract details with each company.
To lead this strike, which began February 1, the union selected nine strategic refineries in Texas, Kentucky, Washington, and California, where the strike would pack a special punch. Factors in the choice included particularly harsh employers and sites with strong member participation.
Five of the nine are in Texas, the U.S.‘s top oil-producing state. Striking workers converged on Houston yesterday to protest outside Shell’s corporate headquarters.
So far 3,800 workers are off the job. Non-striking refinery locals are getting 24-hour contract extensions each day. But the unions says, if need be, it will bring more sites out.
It’s the first national refinery strike since 1980. Back then workers at all represented refineries went out together, and stayed out for three months before they got a deal.
When oil refinery workers walk onto the job, they enter a world of hazards. Any mistakes or malfunctions can harm workers inside--and also the surrounding community.
Workers know the worst-case scenario all too well. An explosion at a BP refinery outside Houston in 2005 killed 15 workers and injured nearly 200. The refinery, later sold to Marathon, is one of the facilities where workers are striking.
Regulators found BP responsible for willfully violating safety protocols, and enacted millions in fines. Four years later, OSHA found 700 more violations, and enacted $87 million in fines for not correcting the violations that caused the explosion.
“We have a lot of forced overtime,” Dave Martin, vice president of the local striking the Marathon refinery in Catlettsburg, Kentucky. “That was one of the main issues in the Texas explosion: people working overtime and not making the right decisions.”
To avoid these types of accidents, in national bargaining the Steelworkers are trying to secure stronger safety protocols and keep management from subcontracting maintenance work.
Though there’s already some contract language to avoid working tired, the union says managers skirt the rules. For instance, workers are supposed to have rest days after double-digit consecutive days working--but Martin says it’s not happening.
“As you get older, it takes more time to recover,” he says. “A day off here and there helps, but it doesn’t heal you up enough to where you are 100 percent.”
And when employees leave, managers aren’t filling empty spots; they’re forcing others to pick up the slack with overtime. “If they staffed this refinery, it would create 150-200 full time jobs in our community,” Martin says.
“The fatigue issue has been a very big problem in this industry,” says Jim Savage, president of a Pennsylvania refinery local. Though his local isn’t on strike (the refinery recently changed owners), he’s been at the national bargaining table. And, he says, “that problem has consistently gotten worse. These companies are trying to run very lean.”
Though oil prices are low, oil companies are still raking in the profits. The big five, including Shell, made almost $90 billion in 2014.
“Let’s face it,” Savage says. “This is the wealthiest, most powerful industry in the history of the world.”
The strike has garnered support from national environmental groups and activists such as Oil Change International and 350.org founder Bill McKibben, who recognize that workers advocating for their own safety are also protecting the public. Oil companies have a long, sordid record of causing spills and accidents by cost-cutting.
Martin reports that the Catlettsburg strike has found local support, too. The union is receiving messages of solidarity from neighbors. Community members and businesses have been bringing food and supplies to the picket line.
“They know that the oil industry makes billions,” he said. “They know the dangers in the facility, what goes on day in and day out. They want us in there.”
While the refinery workers strike, managers are operating the facilities.
Another key safety issue in bargaining is that maintenance work, originally done by union members, is now being contracted out. The union emphasizes that full-time employees receive health and safety training from both the company and the union. Lower-paid, outsourced workers don’t.
While raises are being bargained too, the union stresses they aren’t the central issue. The Steelworkers do want the companies to lower the out-of-pocket caps on workers health insurance, which can amount to thousands of dollars.
As the strike goes on, the Steelworkers will have to weigh bringing more locals out on strike to increase pressure. “If they don’t get serious and there is no agreement,” Savage says, “It’s gonna happen.”
UPDATE: This article has been slightly updated from its original version, to reflect the news that USW rejected Shell’s offered deal on February 5.
Thousands of oil refinery workers are on strike over health and safety, demanding stronger measures to protect workers and surrounding communities from refinery hazards.
Workers cite outsourcing, short staffing, and forced overtime that produces dangerous fatigue--in a job where mistakes can be fatal.
Five days into the strike, Shell Oil, which leads the table for the employers, reportedly offered a settlement that the union’s bargaining team was considering, but by evening, the union had rejected the offer.
The Steelworkers represent 30,000 oil industry workers, at 63 refineries plus related oil terminals, pipelines, and petrochemical facilities. Together they produce 65 percent of the U.S.‘s oil.
Agreements covering most of these members are bargained at a national table with the large oil companies. Once a national pact is reached, local unions will hash out contract details with each company.
To lead this strike, which began February 1, the union selected nine strategic refineries in Texas, Kentucky, Washington, and California, where the strike would pack a special punch. Factors in the choice included particularly harsh employers and sites with strong member participation.
Five of the nine are in Texas, the U.S.‘s top oil-producing state. Striking workers converged on Houston yesterday to protest outside Shell’s corporate headquarters.
So far 3,800 workers are off the job. Non-striking refinery locals are getting 24-hour contract extensions each day. But the unions says, if need be, it will bring more sites out.
It’s the first national refinery strike since 1980. Back then workers at all represented refineries went out together, and stayed out for three months before they got a deal.
When oil refinery workers walk onto the job, they enter a world of hazards. Any mistakes or malfunctions can harm workers inside--and also the surrounding community.
Workers know the worst-case scenario all too well. An explosion at a BP refinery outside Houston in 2005 killed 15 workers and injured nearly 200. The refinery, later sold to Marathon, is one of the facilities where workers are striking.
Regulators found BP responsible for willfully violating safety protocols, and enacted millions in fines. Four years later, OSHA found 700 more violations, and enacted $87 million in fines for not correcting the violations that caused the explosion.
“We have a lot of forced overtime,” Dave Martin, vice president of the local striking the Marathon refinery in Catlettsburg, Kentucky. “That was one of the main issues in the Texas explosion: people working overtime and not making the right decisions.”
To avoid these types of accidents, in national bargaining the Steelworkers are trying to secure stronger safety protocols and keep management from subcontracting maintenance work.
Though there’s already some contract language to avoid working tired, the union says managers skirt the rules. For instance, workers are supposed to have rest days after double-digit consecutive days working--but Martin says it’s not happening.
“As you get older, it takes more time to recover,” he says. “A day off here and there helps, but it doesn’t heal you up enough to where you are 100 percent.”
And when employees leave, managers aren’t filling empty spots; they’re forcing others to pick up the slack with overtime. “If they staffed this refinery, it would create 150-200 full time jobs in our community,” Martin says.
“The fatigue issue has been a very big problem in this industry,” says Jim Savage, president of a Pennsylvania refinery local. Though his local isn’t on strike (the refinery recently changed owners), he’s been at the national bargaining table. And, he says, “that problem has consistently gotten worse. These companies are trying to run very lean.”
Though oil prices are low, oil companies are still raking in the profits. The big five, including Shell, made almost $90 billion in 2014.
“Let’s face it,” Savage says. “This is the wealthiest, most powerful industry in the history of the world.”
The strike has garnered support from national environmental groups and activists such as Oil Change International and 350.org founder Bill McKibben, who recognize that workers advocating for their own safety are also protecting the public. Oil companies have a long, sordid record of causing spills and accidents by cost-cutting.
Martin reports that the Catlettsburg strike has found local support, too. The union is receiving messages of solidarity from neighbors. Community members and businesses have been bringing food and supplies to the picket line.
“They know that the oil industry makes billions,” he said. “They know the dangers in the facility, what goes on day in and day out. They want us in there.”
While the refinery workers strike, managers are operating the facilities.
Another key safety issue in bargaining is that maintenance work, originally done by union members, is now being contracted out. The union emphasizes that full-time employees receive health and safety training from both the company and the union. Lower-paid, outsourced workers don’t.
While raises are being bargained too, the union stresses they aren’t the central issue. The Steelworkers do want the companies to lower the out-of-pocket caps on workers health insurance, which can amount to thousands of dollars.
As the strike goes on, the Steelworkers will have to weigh bringing more locals out on strike to increase pressure. “If they don’t get serious and there is no agreement,” Savage says, “It’s gonna happen.”
UPDATE: This article has been slightly updated from its original version, to reflect the news that USW rejected Shell’s offered deal on February 5.
Against a backdrop of Israel's genocidal obliteration of Gaza City and a worsening man-made famine throughout the embattled Palestinian exclave, the United States on Thursday cast its sixth United Nations Security Council veto of a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all hostages held by Hamas.
At its 10,000th meeting, the UN Security Council voted 14-1 with no abstentions in favor of a resolution proposed by the 10 nonpermanent UNSC members demanding "an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire" in Gaza, the "release of all hostages" held by Hamas, and for Israel to "immediately and unconditionally lift all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid" into the besieged strip.
Morgan Ortagus, President Donald Trump's deputy special envoy to the Middle East, vetoed the proposal, saying that the move "will come as no surprise," as the US has killed five previous UNSC Gaza ceasefire resolutions under both the Biden and Trump administrations, most recently in June.
Ortagus said the resolution failed to condemn Hamas or affirm Israel's right to self-defense and “wrongly legitimizes the false narratives benefiting Hamas, which have sadly found currency in this council."
The US has unconditionally provided Israel with billions of dollars worth of armed aid and diplomatic cover since October 2023 as the key Mideast ally wages a war increasingly viewed as genocidal, including by a commission of independent UN experts this week.
Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said the torpedoed resolution represented the "bare minimum" that must be accomplished, adding that “it is deeply regrettable and painful that it has been blocked.”
“Babies dying of starvation, snipers shooting people in the head, civilians killed en masse, families displaced again and again... humanitarians and journalists targeted... while Israeli officials are openly mocking all of this," Mansour added.
Following the UNSC's latest failure to pass a ceasefire resolution, Algerian Ambassador to the UN Amar Bendjama asked Gazans to "forgive" the body for not only its inability to approve such measures, but also for failing to stop the Gaza famine, in which at least hundreds of Palestinians have died and hundreds of thousands more are starving. Every UNSC members but the US concurred last month that the Gaza famine is a man-made catastrophe.
“Israel kills every day and nothing happens," Bendjama said. "Israel starves a people and nothing happens. Israel bombs hospitals, schools, shelters, and nothing happens. Israel attacks a mediator and steps on diplomacy, and nothing happens. And with every act, every act unpunished, humanity itself is diminished.”
Benjama also asked Gazans to "forgive us" for failing to protect children in the strip, more than 20,000 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombs, bullets, and blockade over the past 713 days. He also noted that upward of 12,000 women, 4,000 elderly, 1,400 doctors and nurses, 500 aid workers, and 250 journalists “have been killed by Israel."
Condemning Thursday's veto, Hamas accused the US of “blatant complicity in the crime of genocide," which Israel is accused of committing in an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) case filed in December 2023 by South Africa and backed by around two dozen nations.
Hamas—which led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and is believed to be holding 20 hostages left alive out of 251 people kidnapped that day—implored the countries that sponsored the ceasefire resolution to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who along with former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, to accept an agreement to halt hostilities.
Overall, at least 65,141 Palestinians have been killed and over 165,900 others wounded by Israeli forces since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose figures have not only been confirmed by former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, but deemed a significant undercount by independent researchers. Thousands more Gazans are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the ruins of the flattened strip.
UK Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward stessed after Thursday's failed UNSC resolution that "we need a ceasefire more than ever."
“Israel’s reckless expansion of its military operation takes us further away from a deal which could bring the hostages home and end the suffering in Gaza," Woodward said.
Thursday's developments came as Israeli forces continued to lay waste to Gaza City as they push deeper into the city as part of Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from the strip's capital. Israeli leaders have said they are carrying out the operation in accordance with Trump's proposal to empty Gaza of Palestinians and transform it into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
In what some observers said was a bid to prevent the world from witnessing fresh Israeli war crimes in Gaza City, internet and phone lines were cut off in the strip Thursday, although officials said service has since been mostly restored.
Gaza officials said Thursday that at least 50 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces since dawn, including 40 in Gaza City, which Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Abu Azzoum said is being pummeled into "a lifeless wasteland."
Azzoum reported that tens of thousands of Palestinians "are moving to the south on foot or in carts, looking for any place that is relatively safe—but with no guarantee of safety—or at least for shelter."
Israel has repeatedly bombed areas it advised Palestinians were "safe zones," including a September 2 airstrike that massacred 11 people—nine of them children—queued up to collect water in al-Mawasi.
"Most families who have arrived in the south have not found space," Azzoum added. "That’s why we’ve seen people setting up makeshift tents close to the water while others are left stranded in the street, living under the open sky."
President Donald Trump doubled down on his threats to silence his critics Thursday, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that outlets that give him "bad press" may have their broadcast licenses taken away.
The threat came just one day after his Federal Communications Commission (FCC) director, Brendan Carr, successfully pressured ABC into pulling Jimmy Kimmel's show from the air by threatening the broadcast licenses of its affiliates over a comment the comedian made about the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
"I read someplace that the networks were 97% against me," Trump told the press gaggle. "I get 97% negative, and yet I won it easily. I won all seven swing states, popular vote, I won everything. And they're 97% against, they give me wholly bad publicity... I mean, they're getting a license, I would think maybe their license should be taken away."
"When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do," the president continued. "If you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative on in years or something, somebody said, but when you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.”
He said that the decision would be left up to Carr, who has threatened to take away licenses from networks that air what he called "distorted" content.
It is unclear where Trump's statistic that networks have been "97% against" him originates, nor the claim that mainstream news networks "haven't had a conservative on in years."
But even if it were true, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez says "the FCC doesn't have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to revoke a license because of content."
In comments made to Axios Thursday, Gomez—the lone Democrat on the five-member panel—said that the Trump administration was "weaponizing its licensing authority in order to bring broadcasters to heel," as part of a "campaign of censorship and control."
National news networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC do not have broadcasting licenses approved by the FCC, nor do cable networks like CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. The licenses threatened by Carr are for local affiliates, which—despite having the branding of the big networks—are owned by less well-known companies like Nexstar Media Group and the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, both of which pushed in favor of ABC's decision to ax Kimmel.
Gomez said that with Trump's intimidation of broadcasters, the "threat is the point."
"It is a very hard standard to meet to revoke a license, which is why it's so rarely done, but broadcast license to the broadcasters are extremely valuable," she said. "And so they don't want to be dragged before the FCC either in order to answer to an enforcement complaint of some kind or under the threat of possible revocation."
Democratic lawmakers are vowing to investigate the Trump administration's pressure campaign that may have led to ABC deciding to indefinitely suspend late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) announced on Thursday that he filed a motion to subpoena Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr one day after he publicly warned ABC of negative consequences if the network kept Kimmel on the air.
"Enough of Congress sleepwalking while [President Donald] Trump and [Vice President JD] Vance shred the First Amendment and Constitution," Khanna declared. "It is time for Congress to stand up for Article I."
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, also said on Thursday that he was opening an investigation into the potential financial aspects of Carr's pressure campaign on ABC, including the involvement of Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which is the network's largest affiliate and is currently involved in merger talks that will need FCC approval.
"The Oversight Committee is launching an investigation into ABC, Sinclair, and the FCC," he said. "We will not be intimidated and we will defend the First Amendment."
Progressive politicians weren't the only ones launching an investigation into the Kimmel controversy, as legal organization Democracy Forward announced that it's filed a a Freedom of Information Act request for records after January 20, 2025 related to any FCC efforts “to use the agency’s licensing and enforcement powers to police and limit speech and influence what the public can watch and hear.”