The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.14           April 7, 1997 
 
 
Oil Workers Protest Tosco's Concession Demands  
This column is devoted to reporting the resistance by working people to the employers' assault on their living standards, working conditions, and unions.

We invite you to contribute short items to this column as a way for other fighting workers around the world to read about and learn from these important struggles. Jot down a few lines about what is happening in your union, at your workplace, or other workplaces in your area, including interesting political discussions.

RODEO, California - Some 125 oil workers and activists from communities surrounding Bay Area oil refineries, demonstrated in front of the Unocal refinery here March 5 to protest moves by the Tosco Refining Company to gut hard-won union rights and safety practices at the plant. Tosco purchased Unocal's four California refineries and is to take over the facilities at the end of March.

The company has refused to recognize the existing union contract, and plans to selectively "rehire" only those workers it chooses for jobs in its newly-owned refineries. Tosco's owners are demanding that the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers (OCAW) submit to a series of sharp cuts in the work force, job combinations, and the elimination of the fire and safety department.

Howard Spencer, president of OCAW 1-326 at the refinery, explained to the crowd what Tosco has demanded. He said that the company wants to immediately cut 15 percent of all operators' jobs at each of the four refineries, while reorganizing the work schedule to incorporate a 24 percent increase in forced overtime hours for those operators who are left.

Operators, who monitor and control the various process units in the plant 24 hours a day and must be alert to deal with problems that might develop at any time, already work rotating shifts. Spencer said that many already put in hundreds of hours of overtime each year.

Tosco is also demanding that operators perform a wide variety of maintenance work while running their units, which prevents them from closely watching the equipment and control panels. The union president said that if the company doesn't back down on its demands the workers could strike all four Unocal plants March 31.

Tosco's planned elimination of the fire and safety department would place responsibility upon operators for issuing permits for welding, vessel entry, or other work that involves special hazards or potentially dangerous conditions, said Art Bertz, the union local's safety representative in the plant. "Tosco thinks safety is a numbers game. The more numbers they cut, the safer they think it will be," he said. Bertz pointed out that without the fire and safety department, neither workers nor surrounding communities will have round the clock protection in the event of a fire or other emergency.

Over the past few years, leaks and fires at Unocal have dropped poisonous chemicals, hydrogen sulfide, hydrocarbon vapors, and soot on the nearby towns of Rodeo, Crockett, and Tormey.

The response from area residents forced Unocal to install fence line monitors and heightened public awareness of issues around refinery safety. Tosco's moves to cut refinery staffing and attack working conditions are being closely watched by many people in the area, particularly in the wake of a January 22 explosion at the Tosco Avon refinery, which killed an operator and injured 44 others.

Community activists have sought for years to involve the OCAW in their efforts to improve plant safety, and were happy to lend their support to the union. "OCAW is keeping the plant safe," said Janet Pie-George, a community activist at the rally. "If they want to get rid of you they'll have to deal with Rodeo, Tormey, and Crockett."

Kasha Kessler, who lives in Crockett, told the crowd, "We're 100 percent behind you. Your work is really important to us. We don't want cutbacks, nor contract laborers" at the plant. Kessler was one of a number of activists from local community and environmental groups at the rally. Others included Julia May, of the Communities for a Better Environment, based in San Francisco, and Henry Clark, of the Richmond-based West County Toxics Coalition.

Participants also included some workers from the Avon refinery, located about 10 miles east of here. Many OCAW members at Avon sense that they will be next to face Tosco's antiunion attacks, and are seeking to find out what is happening at Unocal. Union officials have done little to keep workers there informed of developments at Unocal, although anything unionists do learn is quickly passed around the plant and discussed at length.

Orchestra musicians win their strike in Seattle
SEATTLE - Orchestra musicians who are members of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) local 76-493, won a strike here against the Fifth Avenue Theater February 25. The strike captured the attention of the labor movement and received broad support in the Seattle area.

The musicians struck primarily over wages and working conditions after management resisted meaningful negotiations. The Fifth Avenue Orchestra had been one of the lowest paid orchestras in the country, at around $93 per musician, per performance. The orchestra consists of a pool of 40 musicians who play various performances at that theater.

The AFM, with the help of other unions in the city, organized large and vocal picket lines in front of this downtown theater when management announced they would open the show Beauty and the Beast with scab musicians from out of town. The previous week's performances, including opening night, had been canceled due to the strike.

On February 19, management attempted a second opening night, this time with a scab orchestra. Close to a thousand enthusiastic strikers and supporters joined the picket line. Within an hour management announced that they were canceling the show that night, stating that there had been a bomb threat. Pickets took over the street in celebration and held a spontaneous victory rally.

For a week hundreds of unionists, professionals and youth turned out nightly, despite prominent news coverage that focused on frightened children, wading with their parents through walls of chanting pickets, to see the show.

Striker Doug Solowan, speaking at the Militant Labor Forum three days after the settlement said, "This victory strengthened the labor movement more than 100 organizers could have. The sheer power of the picket line scared the pants off of management."

Solowan, a violist in the orchestra, described the serious character of the Fifth Avenue Theater's union- busting campaign in the context of record profits that Broadway shows have been making across the country in the last 5 to 8 years.

Theater management had hired Larry Levien, a lawyer who works for the notorious union-busting law firm that was used by airline boss Frank Lorenzo during the Eastern Airlines strike. They also brought in Pinkerton guards who escorted the scabs in and out, and harassed stage hands during the show. Levien's swift departure after a few days of mass picketing, was followed by a resumption of bargaining with the union.

"Everybody has other jobs. This doesn't pay a living wage," Solowan said. He explained how the musicians have no health insurance through the theater, and have been struggling for years to change unsafe workplace conditions in the orchestra pit, like the lack of a second exit in case of fire. Shows like Beauty and Beast, which have pyrotechnic special effects, are a particular fire hazard for musicians.

Strikers won a 20 percent increase in wages over the three-year life of the contract, and the language they had sought guaranteeing them compensation for their recorded performances.

Jim Altenberg, member of OCAW Local 1-5 at the Tosco refinery in Avon, California, and Emily Fitzsimmons, member of United Transportation Union Local 845 in Seattle, contributed to this week's column.

 
 
 
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