Union says progress being made in refinery labor talks

Houston Chronicle ^ | Feb. 2, 2009, 5:33PM | L.M. SIXEL

[thackney]

Progress is being made in labor contract negotiations between several energy companies and the union for about 30,000 refinery and chemical workers nationally, including 4,200 in the Houston area, a union spokeswoman said today.

Negotiators for the United Steelworkers Union are meeting in Austin with representatives of Shell Oil Co., which is the lead negotiator for the industry, on the second day of the extension of an old contract that expired early Sunday morning.

“We think we will be in a better position to know exactly where we’re at in the morning,” Lynne Baker, spokeswoman for the United Steelworkers Union, wrote in an e-mail alert this afternoon.

Negotiators could either strike a new deal — which could happen anytime — or the union could give notice that it could strike, Baker said.

Hours before the Sunday morning strike deadline, the National Oil Bargaining Committee received another offer from Shell that would give workers a 3 percent raise for each year of the three-year contact and a $2,500 ratification bonus, according to an update that was provided to its members by the United Steelworkers Union Local 11-470 in Billings, Mont.

The average wage paid to affected workers nationally currently is $30.06 per hour.

Workers would continue to pay 20 percent of their health care costs under the deal, according to the Billings update. Union negotiators had been trying to boost the percentage that companies pay toward their employees’ health care.

[ken21]

unions sux.

(sic)

si.

[RSmithOpt]

Not bad money, $30.06/hr avg., lots of training in that number....wonder how much the union takes on that number?

[SeaHawkFan]

$30.06 in the area where the Shell refinery is located is very good money, especially in a state that has no income tax and $150,000 can buy you a very nice, new 2,700 SF house that would cost at least $400,000 in Portland, OR.