Steelworkers Union Reaches Tentative Pattern Agreement with Oil Industry

Austin, Texas—The United Steelworkers (USW) union reached a tentative agreement today with the lead company for the oil industry that becomes the minimum standard of wages, benefits and working conditions for all National Oil Bargaining local union negotiations in the U.S.

“These were tough negotiations given the economic conditions of an economy still in a total free-fall,” said USW International President Leo W. Gerard said. “The oil companies were not willing to work with us fully to improve process safety.”

The tentative agreement was approved by the National Oil Policy Committee today and is being proposed at all Shell/Motiva local union bargaining tables. After being proposed at Shell local union negotiations, the tentative proposal is then placed on the table at other oil company local union bargaining sessions. The ratification process will commence per local union procedures at the conclusion of their local bargaining sessions.

“This industry has placed so many roadblocks, preventing us from achieving our goals of responsibly dealing in a cooperative manner with the meaningful process safety language that is needed in order for us to effectively improve conditions to our workplace contracts,” USW International Vice President Gary Beevers said. Beevers is in charge of the union’s National Oil Bargaining program.

“With the USW completely understanding the severe economic crisis the nation finds itself in, we certainly didn’t want to contribute to the economic struggles of the American public by calling a national strike and possibly seeing the spiking of gas and diesel prices, home foreclosures of our members, or any other hardships.

“We opted to reach a tentative agreement on economic issues and withdrew our bargaining demands for the safety language we and the public sorely need. But let it be clear, we are not finished with our struggles for meaningful change in the health and safety arena,” Beevers said.

The full release of the Tentative Agreement will be released after the membership has had an opportunity to review it.

The USW represents 30,000 oil workers in the production, refining, marketing, transportation, pipeline and petrochemical sectors of the oil industry.

The USW is the largest industrial union in North America and has 850,000 members in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean and Aruba. It represents workers employed in metals, rubber, chemicals, paper, oil refining, atomic energy and the service sector. For more information on oil bargaining and its history, go to www.oilbargaining.org or www.usw.org.

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