The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.12           March 30, 1998 
 
 
Meeting Of Socialist Oil Workers Discusses Crown Lockout  

BY JERRY FREIWIRTH
HOUSTON - The two-year-long fight of oil workers locked out by Crown Central Petroleum Corp. just outside Houston served as a centerpiece for discussions at a recent meeting here of socialist workers who are members of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union.

"Despite everything, these workers refuse to give up," said Patti Iiyama, a refinery worker at Lyondell- Citgo in Houston, in a report on the Crown situation that opened the meeting. "Nearly 200 of the 251 locked- out workers and their families still staff the picket line at Crown every week."

It is important not to view the Crown fight in isolation, Iiyama said. "This is part of the bosses' attacks against workers at home, which is the opposite side of the same coin as their drive against workers abroad, like their war plans in Iraq." The fight of the locked-out Crown workers should also be viewed in the context of the recent contract rejection by the Caterpillar workers and the strike by the Teamsters against Honeywell in Minnesota, she said. "These are all signs that the long retreat by U.S. workers has bottomed out."

Crown Central Petroleum locked out its unionized workers, members of OCAW Local 4-227, on Feb. 5, 1996 during contract negotiations in which the company pressed for a series of deep concessions by the union. At the heart of these was Crown's demand to lay off workers at the company's whim, without regard to seniority. Leading up to the contract deadline, workers in the catalytic cracking unit organized a march of 175 union members to the refinery's administration building. The bosses called in the cops. A week later Crown broke off negotiations and walked workers out of the plant.

"To justify their preemptive attack on the union," Iiyama explained, "Crown charged the workers with sabotaging process equipment. They claimed more than 400 incidents of actual or planned sabotage. These charges are wholly false, and the unionists have a convincing item-by-item refutation. But when the union brought this before the National Labor Relations Board, they were told Crown did not need any proof to justify their lockout. All that was required was that the company officials `believed' that sabotage might be possible!"

Since industrial vandalism at an energy-producing plant is a federal offense, the FBI opened an investigation of the charges more than a month later. Crown workers reported to fellow unionists that they were visited at their homes and questioned, sometimes in the early morning . Quite a few reportedly refused to talk with the FBI. In desperation, Crown offered a $20,000 reward for anyone who would implicate other workers in sabotage. When they found no takers for this bribe, the offer was raised to $60,000. There were still no takers and the FBI was unable to find or concoct evidence for any indictment, but they have not closed the case.

Crown claims the workers in the plant showed disregard for the health and safety of the working- class neighborhoods surrounding the plant, where many of them live and where Crown has routinely released chemicals over the years. They have been running the plant since the lockout with nearly full production, using a combination of supervisors, secretaries, contract operators, and other scabs. They are bringing in young people right out of community college operations classes at about half the pay that union members received. A report issued by the OCAW and a local environmental group presents convincing evidence that Crown's already high pollution emissions tripled since the lockout.

Local 4-227 has laid plans to go door-to-door in the surrounding neighborhoods, which are heavily Chicano and mexicano, to explain the truth about Crown's pollution record and enlist their support in a common fight against the company's greed.

The gathering of socialist oil and chemical workers also discussed the importance of the civil lawsuit filed on January 15 by Crown against 14 locked-out workers, an officer of the OCAW local, and the local itself, charging sabotage and conspiracy. The union on February 25 filed a motion to dismiss in Federal District Court. Defendants, other locked-out Crown workers, and OCAW members in the region have begun a serious discussion about how to defend the charged workers and the union. Many are concerned that a judgment victimizing the Crown workers and their union would weaken all unions in the area and perhaps present an excuse for the FBI to reopen its criminal investigation.

Over the course of the two-day meeting a number of participants joined the picket lines at Crown. "Even though not all the workers are sure about what to do next," explained Jim Altenberg, a refinery operator in Avon, California, "what impresses you is their determination to continue the fight. And a real discussion is taking place about what to do next, how to link up with other workers under attack along the Houston Ship Channel."

The socialists reviewed other recent developments in the union movement. Alyson Kennedy from Chicago reported on her discussions with Caterpillar workers in Peoria, Illinois, as they went to vote on a proposed contract. "It was voted down by a large margin, which set back Caterpillar. The people I talked to voted in solidarity with the 50 workers illegally terminated by Caterpillar for their strike activities."

Oil workers discuss war on Iraq
Participants at the meeting discussed at some length the recent UN agreement imposed on Iraq. "The accords brokered by the United Nations will do nothing to bring peace," said Joel Britton, a worker in the wet corn-milling industry from Chicago who presented the main political report. "This agreement, in fact, further legitimizes a U.S. military assault. The U.S. armed forces in the Gulf are on a hair trigger, waiting for the slightest pretext to launch a murderous bombing campaign of Iraq."

One oil worker from Houston described discussions in his refinery control room as an "on-again, off- again `town meeting.' Opinions are all over the map, from sharp opposition to going to war to calls for marching on Baghdad." Another participant explained, "There's a growing cynicism about the reasons the Clinton administration offers to justify going to war. Many of my co-workers believe it's really about oil."

Britton responded to this remark in his report, commenting, "certainly the massive oil reserves of the region play an important role in Washington's real motivations for planning to assault Iraq. But it can't be reduced to oil. Perhaps the principal reason the U.S. government is determined to install a client regime in Iraq is its need to prepare for a war against the workers of Russia."

At a Militant Labor Forum at the Houston Pathfinder Bookstore, which the socialist oil workers attended, Mámud Shirvani elaborated on the connection with the former Soviet Union. "The imperialist ruling classes thought they could reintroduce capitalism into these workers states," he said. "But this hasn't worked; economic means alone are insufficient. While there are still debates in ruling circles, a growing majority believe that only direct military intervention can accomplish this goal." The war moves in the Gulf, Shirvani explained, are similar to the expansion of NATO forces to the Russian borders in Europe. This is the meaning of President Clinton's and U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright's arrogant proclamation of the U.S. as `the only indispensable nation.' It's why they have begun associating Russia with the so-called "rogue states."

Assessing common political work
"When we met here in Houston in January our assessment was that we weren't getting the job done," said Eli Green, a pipe fitter at an oil refinery in Los Angeles, who presented a report on future tasks. "In that sense we weren't fully prepared to meet the challenge posed by Washington's war drive," he explained. "Our record since then indicates that we've begun to turn this around. Looking at our work over the recent weeks, we've begun to close the gap between word and deed."

Socialist oil workers made real steps forward in distributing the Militant and other communist literature on the job as a part of opposing imperialism's looming war against Iraq, in bringing co- workers to antiwar pickets and other political activities, and in fighting shoulder to shoulder with fellow workers under the gun in the United States, like at Crown.

Seventy-seven copies of the Militant were sold on the job since the January meeting, as well as 14 copies of the Marxist magazine New International no 7, which details the 1990-91 Gulf War. Socialist OCAW members were less successful in their campaign to sell the recently issued Pathfinder pamphlet, Celebrating the Homecoming of Ernesto Che Guevara, and a discussion was held on how to upgrade the effort to tell the truth about the Cuban revolution.

The meeting adopted goals for participation in the upcoming Militant subscription campaign and secured initial pledges in excess of $8,000 towards the projected Militant Fund Drive beginning March 14.

Jerry Freiwirth is a member of OCAW Local 4-367 in Deer Park, Texas.  
 
 
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