Posted on 02/14/2015 6:24:51 AM PST by thackney
Tensions escalated Friday in the nearly two-week strike after picketers were told to get off the Shell Deer Park Refining property.
The order puts the strikers in danger because the refinery fronts the feeder road on Texas 225 and there is no sidewalk on which to stand, said Lee Medley, president of the United Steelworkers Local 13-1. He said Shell gave the strikers walking the picket line 30 minutes to get themselves, their chairs, ice chests and other equipment off the property.
Shell issued its order in response to unsafe behaviors by the picketers including blocking entrances with picketers and cars, company spokesman Ray Fisher said.
“They weren’t playing by the rules we set,” he said.
Before the strike, currently at 11 plants nationwide, including Shell’s refinery in Deer Park, representatives of the United Steelworkers union and Shell Oil Co. agreed that picketers could march in front of the company’s property in Deer Park. Both sides said it was designed so the picketers would be safe.
Medley said there had been some incidents such as picketers walking too slowly in front of entering and exiting vehicles and “short-turning” which means the picketers quickly turn at the end of driveway and march back.
He said he has tried to address the problems as soon as they came up.
He added that it hasn’t just been the picketers who were causing problems on the picket line. Shell employees have pulled their vehicles close to the strikers and revved their engines and honked their horns, he said.
“I was trying to get as much peace as I could,” he said.
Medley said that what happened at the Shell Deer Park refinery Friday has shifted some of the dynamic of the strike.
“If we’re trying to get an agreement, why would they try to pull (something) like this?” he said, adding that what happened could affect the union’s strategic strike planning going forward.
Fisher said Shell was forced to issue its notice: “We gave them numerous opportunities for the problems to be corrected and they have not been.”
He said Shell gave the strikers walking the picket line 30 minutes to get themselves, their chairs, ice chests and other equipment off the property.
Sounds like they’re doing more picketing than while on the job.
Fire them all. They’re already getting far more than they’re worth.
Only a union backed by powerful politicians would picket on the private property of the business they are striking
“Shell employees have pulled their vehicles close ... honked their horns and revved their engines.”
If the union gangst—I mean, picketers were allowed on Shell property, under certain conditions, because there is no sidewalk and the road runs along the fence, and the gangst—I mean picketers are failing to adhere to those conditions ...
Well, it looks like the Shell employees are just trying to get to work.
So run the picke—I mean gangsters’ a**es over!
The union could pay to install a sidewalk.
Icebreakers too.
Ouch !
You and I both know that there is a maintenance staff at both chemical and petrochemical facilities year-round. There is work that needs to be done every day to keep those places running,
And as to the Steelworkers...you aren't Pipefitters, Boilermakers, nor Machinists. You guys have NONE of the job skills necessary to do maintenance work. Go find a new construction job to hang your steel.
In the 70’and 80’s I had experience dealing with Steelworkers at a heavy industrial plant in a mid-sized corporation. Unfortunately, the three year contracts expired in the summer and these unearned vacations appealed to them for only one time did they not go on strike. We ran the plant with supervisors and office workers. Our corporate management did a good job of not bowing down to them and worked out good contracts - fair for both sides - not like the auto union negotiations.
These strikers played rough. They would use sling shots aiming ball bearings at car windows, often female employees, breaking the windows. The idea was intimidation, instead it made the gals boiling mad. Strikers would take nails and bend them into jacks, then driving along side trucks, 18 wheelers too, would throw the nail jacks under the wheels. The plant was in a rural area and many supervisors lived in the country. Sometimes they would strangely find an out building on fire in the middle of the night. This is the union way.
Just like 99% of all the roads in texas.
Wearing white after Labor Day?
Holding their teacups with pinkie finger extended?
How gauche...
Union bosses are almost all criminals, many of the members are also, but there are some decent people that are members.
I was a member of the USW when I was in College and a while they were very corrupt and lazy, the members thought they were honest and hard working.
They believed that working for 4 hours and slacking off, so that their "2nd and third shift brothers" would have some work to do was the right thing.
They never saw it as stealing or being corrupt and they always blamed everything on the "big shots".
When I graduated from college, the workers that I knew couldn't believe that I'd take a job in sales making less money than I was making with the Steel Workers at the time.
I never regretted it for a single second.
P.S. My father was a member of the USW for 40+ years, but he was one of the naive, good guys that believed all the crap that the union thugs lied about all the time.
Most all were good folks, the dirty tricks guys were also poor performers the company couldn’t terminate because of union. Interestingly, of all the first line supervisors replaced or hired, about half were from the ranks of the union, the others recent college grads. The former union members were often biased against the union, more so than the college grads.
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