They’ll never recoup the lost income. What’s the beef with the contract?
No, not even close. Not if they got everything thing they asked for.
What’s the beef with the contract?
In my opinion, it is the fact the refineries use a lot of contract labor that is not part of the union.
The union has stated it is on strike because of safety concerns for its members and the community, but Shell has said otherwise. The oil and gas company said that the major sticking point was the union’s demand that Shell replace routine maintenance contractors with union-backed employees.
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Letter to USW Oil Workers
http://www.usw.org/news/media-center/articles/2015/letter-to-usw-oil-workers
...During this round of negotiations, the union has made many proposals to address the safety and well-being of our members. While the companies have regurgitated some of the language of these proposals in their letters to employees, thereby giving the impression that they are actually bargaining over these issues, they have, in fact, only agreed to “meet and discuss” them. They have, up until now, adamantly refused to bargain in good faith over these critical matters....
... Our proposal includes specific time limits for completing the review and a process by which the parties can agree to develop a plan to assign it to our bargaining unit. It includes the flexibility to have certain of that work remain in the hands of contractors where that is suitable and where that makes sense for the local unions at the refinery level. Remember, this isn’t about outage, turnaround and new construction work that we are talking about unless we are currently doing some of that work. This is the day to day maintenance and repair work that is crucial to our ability to conduct ourselves as a union. The local union and company would jointly develop a plan and timetable for that day-to-day work to be performed by the bargaining unit. Furthermore the USW and the North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) have reached an understanding regarding the types of work the USW is defending in our strike and the Building Trades have pledged their members will refrain from performing that struck work.....
more from USW at link
The interests of the union are not necessarily those of the membership. In this case, they conflict. The USW wants more positions in the plant to be union. This means more $$$ per month in dues income for the union, and more potential $$$ in pay for local union officials.
It's about the Benjamins. Union 'leadership' still draws full pay during the strike. It's breathtakingly cynical.