FEBRUARY 04, 2015
Tony Mazzocchi's Spirit Haunts Big Oil Again
by STEVE EARLY
Twelve years ago, America’s leading advocate of occupational health and environmental safety succumbed to pancreatic cancer.
In
the U.S., where the influence of organized labor has long been
contracting, the death of a former trade union official is often little
noted. Yet Tony Mazzocchi was no ordinary labor leader. His passing from
the scene, at age 76, was widely recognized and correctly mourned as a
great loss for the entire union movement.
As
a top strategist for the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW),
Mazzocchi pioneered alliances between workers concerned about job safety
and health hazards and communities exposed to industrial pollution
generated by companies like Shell, Chevron, and Mobil.
In
1973, members of the OCAW (who are now part of the United Steel
Workers) conducted a national contract campaign and four-month strike at
Shell Oil over workplace safety rights and protections. As Mazzocchi
biographer Les Leopold notes, “the strike helped build a stronger
anti-corporate movement” because OCAW members learned “that you can’t
win these fights alone.” To win—or even just battle Big Oil to a
draw—workers had to join forces with the very same environmental groups
long demonized by the industry as an enemy of both labor and management.
Striking Big Oil Again
Four
decades later, echoes of that struggle could be heard on the refinery
town picket-lines that went up in northern California, Texas, Kentucky,
and Washington state this week. Thousands of oil workers walked out, for
the first time in 35 years, over issues and demands that Tony Mazzocchi
helped publicize and build coalitions around for much of his career.
About
30,000 refinery employees are still covered by the USW agreement that
expired last weekend. Nearly 4,000 of them are on strike at nine plants
already, including Tesoro refineries in Martinez and Carson, CA. Other
USW members, including those employed at Chevron in Richmond, CA. may
join the walkout if industry negotiators fail to address non-wage issues
summarized by USWA vice-president Gary Beevers as follows:
“Onerous overtime, unsafe staffing levels, dangerous conditions the industry continues to ignore; the daily occurrences of fires, emissions, leaks and explosions that threaten local communities without the industry doing much about it and the flagrant contracting out that impacts health and safety on the job.”
Unfortunately,
too many people in this community equate Chevron’s unionized workforce
with the AFL-CIO building trades organizations that regularly mobilize
their members to support the company’s own agenda, whatever is. Just
last fall, those unions, which represent workers employed by Chevron
contractors, joined Chevron in a $3.1 million campaign to defeat
progressive candidates for Richmond city council and mayor. All of these
outspoken critics of the company’s safety and environmental record were
elected or re-elected anyway, after a strong grassroots campaign led by
the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA).
CSB Findings Validate The Union
As
recently as January 28, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board was back in our
city hall chambers releasing its final findings and recommendations on
Chevron’s 2012 refinery accident. The CSB again faulted lax maintenance
practices for “ the catastrophic pipe rupture,” hydrocarbon release,
and resulting vapor cloud that engulfed nineteen employees, nearly
killing them. Fall-out from the accompanying fire forced 15,000
residents of Richmond and neighboring communities to seek medical
attention; the city is now suing Chevron for millions of dollars in
compensation for other losses, including damage to local property
values.
In
its final report, the CSB criticized a Chevron “safety culture” that
“encouraged continued operation of a unit despite hazardous leaks” and
discouraged its unionized employees from asserting their contract safety
rights. The CSB’s lead investigator, Don Holmstrom, cited evidence of
“increased reluctance” among Chevron refinery operators “to use their
‘stop work’ authority despite being concerned about the results of
maintenance deficiencies.”
On
January 28, the company’s usual building trades cheering squad was
conspicuously absent in city hall. Instead, members of USWA Local 5
turned out in force, wearing union jackets and holding signs publicizing
their key bargaining demands, which overlap with the CSB’s own
recommendations and proposals (none of which are binding on Chevron).
Local
5 member Jim Payne applauded the CSB and welcomed its backing for
stronger “stop work” authority in situations of imminent danger. Former
Richmond mayor and now city council member Gayle McLaughlin, a
California Green, backed Local 5 all the way. “I support the calls for
workers’ right to shut down operations when they feel it’s unsafe,” she
told the CSB on Jan. 28–just three months after Chevron and its building
trades allies failed, once again, to drive her from office.
Divide and Conquer No More?
In
a message to USW members and community supporters this week, Local 5
president BK White sounded like a member of the RPA himself. “Chevron
for years has attempted to rule the Richmond refinery through fear
mongering,” he asserted. The city’s “progressive element…has been
painted in a bad light for their work of attempting to fight for local
residents.”
“The
company has attempted to quell the voices of workers with the fear of
the refinery’s closing, whether it is from regulatory agencies or
community activists, “White said. “This is a failed attempt to weaken
the union and intimidate our rank-and-file from rocking the boat or
fighting for their rights…To underestimate our resolve, would be a grave
miscalculation.”
Union-oriented
environmental activists, locally and nationally, are responding in
kind. The Labor Network for Sustainability is calling for USWA picket
line support and other forms of solidarity. (See www.labor4sustainability. org)
Like
Tony Mazzocchi long ago, LNS coordinator, Joe Uehlein stresses the
importance of linking up with refinery workers because they “are on the
frontlines of protecting our communities against the environmental
hazards of the oil industry.” According to Uehlein, management is
“creating conditions that make it impossible for refinery workers to
protect us,” even though their shop-floor “skill and experience is
critical for preventing devastating explosions, spills, and releases.”
As
part of its own outreach to community allies, the USW is making the
case for oil industry safety reform in a compelling video entitled Still Out of Control. (See http://www.usw. org/video/still-out-of-control ).
The problems of understaffing, mandatory overtime, worker fatigue, lack
of refinery maintenance, and too much contracting out are all
well-documented in this short film, a sequel to one made by the OCAW
years ago.
There
are many other industries in America that put production and profits
before safety but few with deeper pockets or greater environmental
impact than Big Oil. So what better place to make blue-green alliance
building more real than rhetorical, among labor and community partners
long pitted against each other by companies like Chevron and Shell?
Steve Early was
a national union representative for 27 years. He lives in the refinery
town of Richmond, California and is currently writing a book about that
city’s history, politics, labor and environmental struggles. He is the
author, most recently, of Save Our Unions: Dispatches from a Movement in
Distress. He can be reached at Lsupport@aol.com
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