Posted on 02/04/2009 2:13:46 PM PST by BBell
The oil industry and unionized workers are close to resolving a dispute that would have affected almost two-thirds of the nation's fuel production and put 1,500 Louisiana workers on strike.
On Tuesday afternoon, the United Steelworkers reached a tentative agreement with Royal Dutch Shell Pls for a three-year contract. The union would not release the terms of the agreement on Tuesday, although Bloomberg News reported that the deal would give the steelworkers a 3 percent wage increase each year.
To go into effect, the agreement must also be approved by the separate local unions that staff refineries owned by Shell and Motiva Enterprises, a joint venture between Shell and Saudi Aramco.
Three Louisiana facilities with more than 900 unionized steelworkers would be affected by the agreement: a Shell chemical plant and a Motiva refinery, located on the same campus in Norco, and a Motiva refinery in Convent.
Negotiations with the local unions, which are also bargaining for individual concessions, were still under way on Tuesday afternoon.
"We are optimistic agreements will be ratified at the local level in the near future," Stan Mays, a Shell spokesman, said in a statement.
The United Steelworkers, which have been bargaining with the oil industry for nearly two weeks of meetings in Austin, stopped short of calling the deal a victory. In deference to the recession and turbulent financial markets, the union relented on some safety improvements members sought after a March 2005 explosion at BP Plc's refinery in Texas City, Texas, which killed 15 people.
"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
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
I bet they would have had more leverage when gas was $5 a gallon and there wasn’t an oil glut.
It sure would have decimated what’s left of the entire world’s economy and would have brought the righteous wrath of God down upon these labor community organizers for decades!!!
They would have had more leverage but the it would have been very bad in the public relations department for the unions.
That’s a good counter point.
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