About 100 BP-Husky Toledo Refinery workers started picketing outside the plant in Oregon at midnight as the first nationwide strike at U.S. oil refineries since 1980 spread to two BP plants in Indiana and Ohio.
“They’re discouraged that the strike is happening, but they understand why it has to happen,” Bryan Sidel, financial secretary of the local union, said Saturday night of the approximately 350 local workers who went on strike. They plan to keep picketers out around the clock.
The United Steelworkers union formally notified BP PLC early Friday afternoon that Toledo workers at midnight Saturday would be joining the walkout that began last week at nine refineries, said Chad Culbertson, president of the local.
Local workers did not have a vote in the matter, which was a decision by the international union, frustrated by safety issues — not salaries.
Many workers at the Toledo plant are paid about $30 an hour, Mr. Culbertson said.
The local union posted this message on its Facebook page yesterday: “This strike is NOT about money, this is about addressing safety issues that have been ignored for way too long. This is about smart, hard-working men and women being able to go home at the end of the day the same way they went in.
“138 workers were killed on the job while extracting, producing, or supporting oil and gas in 2012, the most recent year that data is available. ... The number was more than double that of 2009.”
BP spokesman Scott Dean said in an email that the company was disappointed with the strike expansion.
“BP remains at the negotiating table and is committed to reaching an agreement that provides good wages while giving management the flexibility it needs to enhance safety, improve efficiency, and remain competitive with others in the industry,” he said.
He said BP has trained replacement workers, primarily current and former BP employees, to operate the refinery for the duration of a strike.
“We hope this strike will be as short as possible and for workers to return with a contract that ensures long-term prosperity for everyone,” he said.
Local union leaders said the strike should not be a financial hardship for individual workers. Because the strike is not over economic issues, Mr. Sidel said he expects workers to be able to draw unemployment benefits. They also will have strike benefits from the union. He said he did not know what that might total.
BP’s Toledo refinery, which it owns 50-50 with Canada’s Husky Energy, has about 600 workers, including about 350 Steelworkers members.
The other plant that was to go on strike at midnight — BP’s plant in Whiting, Ind. — has about 1,860 employees, more than 1,000 of whom are represented by the union.
About 3,800 steelworkers began a strike Feb. 1 at refineries from California to Kentucky, saying that negotiations with Shell Oil Co. had broken down. Shell is negotiating the national contract for other oil companies.
Refineries are far more automated than in the last nationwide strike 35 years ago, and plans to keep plants operating could prevent a shock to gasoline prices.
“Generally production is not impacted by these work stoppages, but prices can go up because of the perception” of an interruption, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. “We’re seeing that on the West Coast.”
First Published February 7, 2015, 7:06 p.m.
