Novel contract ends FINA refinery strike

Union members last week agreed to return to work at FINA Oil & Chemical Co.'s 165,000 b/cd Port Arthur, Tex., refinery, ending a month-long strike.

A workers committee of the Oil, Chemical, & Atomic Workers International Union (OCAW) Local 4-23 on July 30 accepted FINA's new contract offer. OCAW workers had been out on strike since July 1,when the plant's previous labor contract expired.

The new contract is significant, says FINA, because it contains what the company claims is the strongest job security language in the petroleum industry.

In other U.S. petroleum industry labor action late last month, Wainoco Oil Corp. reached agreement with the OCAW union at its Frontier refinery at Cheyenne, Wyo., for a new 3 year contract when the local union has ratified the agreement.

This union accounts for about 155 workers who went on strike May 8 (OGJ, May 13, p. 47). About 25 workers represented by several craft unions had previously returned to work.

While the OCAW workers were out on strike, the refinery was operated by management, supervisory and contract personnel. Throughput was unaffected by the strike.

Contract accepted

Two hundred sixty-nine members of Local 4-23 were to affirm the union committee's decision in a July 31 vote.

FINA at presstime expected the OCAW members to resume work Aug. 1.

The tentative approval of the new labor pact by OCAW leaders appeared to end a standoff that began July 1, when union workers rejected FINA's initial contract offer. FINA tendered its final contract offer to striking workers July 23, but OCAW members rejected it the same day. That contract-FINA's final offer-was to expire July 31.

Eleven members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) working at the Port Arthur refinery July 4 had accepted the terms FINA was offering to OCAW. But the electrical workers honored OCAW's picket line by staying away from work.

Temporary staffing

With its regular work force out on strike, FINA in July used about 200 supervisors and engineers, working 12 hr shifts 7 days/week, to operate its Port Arthur plant. Port Arthur's refining operations in July had shown little if any decline as a result of the temporary staffing.

FINA's Rick Hagar said the company's Port Arthur workers under the old contract were among the highest paid OCAW employees on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Pay and benefits increases in FINA's final offer were in line with recommendations in the international pattern agreement, signed early this year (OGJ, Feb. 12, p. 30). In addition, FINA had offered OCAW Local 4-23 members the opportunity to take part in the company's enhanced savings plan, in which the company each year matches up to 6% of participants' contributions.

"We also were offering a no-layoff clause with the strongest job security language in the petroleum industry," Hagar said. "It is significant. No one else has this in an OCAW contract."

But he added, "This is not a strike over economic issues."

Rather, union leaders reportedly were maintaining the strike because of changes FINA had proposed to Port Arthur's local work rules (LWRs). Hagar said FINA merely was asking union members to accept the same LWRs in effect at other refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Points of agreement

By agreeing to FINA's final offer, Local 4-23 leaders accepted the following former points of contention:

Each shift at Port Arthur has a Number One Operator (NOO) on each major process unit. FINA wanted the NOO on each shift to be responsible for calling in relief whenever another employee didn't show up for work.
FINA had proposed consolidating certain maintenance department crafts by cross-training boilermakers, pipefitters, and painters to create craftsmen with a broader skill set, dubbed maintenance mechanics. Allowing FINA to assign maintenance mechanics to a variety of jobs held for specific crafts by the old labor contract will enable the company to complete more maintenance work at Port Arthur without resorting to contract laborers.
Under the old labor contract at Port Arthur, if any employee's job was eliminated through a plant upgrade, that employee could bump any other employee with less seniority from another unionized job at the refinery. When FINA in 1991 carried out a series of process upgrades at Port Arthur, it touched off a round of employee bumping that created an administrative nightmare. Changes to refinery bumping rules retained bumping rights for most employees whose jobs are eliminated but would force the employee with least seniority on an affected processing unit into a process pool. Still, each affected employee would retain accrued seniority and pay.
FINA wanted to eliminate Port Arthur's standard table of penalties for disciplining union workers.

"Under the old contract, we were the only plant-petrochemical or refinery-in this part of Texas with a standard table of penalties in the contract," Hagar said.

OCAW Local 4-23 members want to keep it that way. But Hagar insisted FINA is not breaking new ground with any proposed provisions.

"All of this is standard in other contracts in Jefferson and Orange counties," he said.