I am in a similar industry, that supplies parts to many of the refineries and chemical plants along the Houston Ship Channel, Texsa City, and the Golden triangle (Beaumont Area).
We’ve been hearing about the possibility of a strike for 2 weeks. Some of our customers wanted to make sure they had what they needed prior to this week-end.
That's pretty much a 'union truism'. Everyone knows a strike's coming and Everyone covers their needs beforehand. Strikes mean union coffers get drained, layoffs are all but certain, tensions remain, the good employees leave, repeat until business collapses and all lose jobs! If unions were a 'new thing', Odumbo & Congress might get away with EFCA. Unfortunately (or fortunately actually) Unions are an 'old thing', a dinosaur from a bygone era, when the uneducated masses could not speak or think for themselves! so they relied on union 'leadership' to solve their day to day problems. Now if you don't know someone close to you who lost their job BECAUSE of a union, you haven't lived in the USA.