US Oil Workers Reject Shell's Contract Offer Prolonging Biggest Refinery Strike since 1980
The United Steelworkers, representing more than 30,000 U.S. oil workers, instructed members to reject a seventh labor contract offered by Royal Dutch Shell Plc as the biggest refinery strike since 1980 dragged on.
The proposal, the first one made by Shell since Feb. 5 on behalf of companies including Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp., “fails to improve safety” in an enforceable way, the USW said in a text message, instructing local units to prepare to join the strike “if called upon.” Ray Fisher, a spokesman for The Hague, Netherlands-based Shell, said the company had no comment beyond saying the two sides met.
Since Feb. 1 more than 5,000 USW workers have walked out of a chemical plant, a cogeneration complex and nine U.S. refineries that account for 13% of the country’s fuel capacity. It’s the biggest strike at U.S. oil refineries since 1980, when a work stoppage lasted three months. The union has members at more than 200 refineries, fuel terminals, pipelines and chemical plants across the U.S.
The national union has called strikes at Tesoro Corp. plants in Martinez and Carson, California, and Anacortes, Washington; Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s Catlettsburg complex in Kentucky and Galveston Bay site in Texas; Shell’s Deer Park complex; LyondellBasell Industries NV’s Houston facility; and BP Plc’s Whiting and Toledo refineries in the Midwest.
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