Teamsters strike after Marathon Oil demands concessions

If any branch of the U.S. economy has been booming of late, is it not the oil industry? Demand for gas remains high despite $3-per-gallon prices, and industry profits have reached record levels as a result.

But last month Marathon Oil, which has achieved unprecedented growth the past two years, handed Teamsters Local 120 employees at its St. Paul Park refinery a final contract offer that, after three months of negotiations, included 25 pages of labor concessions.

The company sought to expand its workers’ on-call responsibilities, to cut nearly 10 percent of its operations department, to increase overtime hours worked by new employees and to reclassify the plant’s primary safety spokespeople as non-union management.

How did the rank and file react? Nearly 99 percent of the local’s 200 members voted July 19 to reject Marathon’s final offer, and members went on strike the very same day.

“We’re still on strike, and we’re going to be on strike until we get this thing resolved,” Local 120 Secretary-Treasurer Brad Slawson Jr. said nine days after Teamsters formed a picket line in St. Paul Park.

Marathon, however, has refused to resume negotiations since the strike began, and both sides appear to be digging in for an extended standoff.

“The company has elected to not bargain and not respond to phone calls from the mediation board,” Slawson said. “This company is rich. They have very deep pockets, and they are going to try to weaken the morale of the employees.
“I’m hoping this is resolved short-term, but we are planning for a long-term strike.”

To maintain operations at the refinery, Marathon called in 25 workers from its other U.S. plants. Supervisors, engineers and chemists from the St. Paul Park plant also are assuming vacated positions, filling in for striking workers and for others who refuse to cross the Teamsters’ picket line.

That arrangement, according to Slawson, is not viable in the long run, nor is it safe for the surrounding community.

“These are Marathon supervisors that haven’t worked in the positions that they’re working now for many, many years, and they’re supervisors from other plants who have never worked in this plant,” Slawson said. “It’s not like driving a car; every plant is unique.”

Slawson added that the St. Paul Park refinery is Marathon’s oldest, making it more prone to safety problems like fires and spills. A day after the strike began, a Marathon Oil tanker crossed the Teamsters’ picket line and collided with a second carrier, resulting in a spill that temporarily closed Interstate 494.

“They’re working the employees in there virtually every day without a day off,” Slawson said. “Over the long run, that’s going to create even more of an unsafe working environment.”

That Marathon would put profits before public safety comes as no surprise to members of Local 120. Most of the men walking the picket line on Day 2 of the strike said safety was their primary reason for walking out.

Some pointed to Marathon’s demand that chief operators, who served as worker-safety spokespeople under the union’s last contract, be reclassified as management, making them ineligible for union membership.

“The chief operator, if he’s a union member, can say no to a project for unsafe reasons,” Slawson explained. “If you’re management and you don’t have the protections of a union contract, you’re going to do those assignments without regard to the safety of your fellow co-workers.”

Other strikers pointed to the company’s demand that workers be on-call all but three days per month. More, those three days would not necessarily be consecutive.

“That furthers the issue of being unsafe — not having enough time off for rest or enough time off with their families,” Slawson said. “When they’re on-call, they have to remain within an hour’s distance of the plant, and if they don’t answer the call or the page, they’re subject to discipline.”

Slawson said companies performing as well as Marathon ought to do better by their employees.

“I think a majority of people might think we’re on strike because we’re asking for more money,” he said. “These are not financial issues, but work issues — seniority, vacation – where the union is not asking for unreasonable items.

It’s very frustrating coming from a company that has had its highest two years of profits in company history the last two years.

“But our employees are strong, united and they know they don’t have any other choice but to be on strike until this is resolved.”

Reprinted from The Union Advocate, the official newspaper of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly, edited by Michael Moore. Used by permission. E-mail The Advocate at: advocate@stpaulunions.org