Oil Workers Reach New Deal

Four-Year Contract Raises Wages, Standards Across Industry

USW leaders in the oil industry reached agreement in February on a new contract that will cover more than 30,000 workers in the oil and petrochemical industry.

The national pattern agreement sets wages and benefits and other terms for members of more than 200 USW bargaining units that are part of the National Oil Bargaining Program (NOBP). The program includes workers in oil refining, production, pipelines, maintenance, storage, petrochemical and renewable facilities that, together, represent about two-thirds of U.S. refining capacity.

“USW members power our economy, and they deserve to be treated with the respect that goes with that,” said International President Roxanne Brown, who led the USW bargaining team alongside NOBP Chair Mike Smith. “These negotiations were about ensuring fair wages, safer workplaces, quality health care and dignified retirements.”

Locals that participate in the NOBP elect regional representatives to the union’s bargaining policy committee, which sets the union’s agenda on issues like wages, health care, training, health and safety and job security.

Separately, local leaders negotiate workplace-specific agreements on issues like scheduling, work rules and job classifications. Employers that participate in NOBP agree to accept the terms negotiated at the national level in the local agreements. As a result, the new four-year deal will take effect at each facility as individual USW locals ratify new contracts.

Despite significant gains in wages, benefits and other terms, this year’s negotiations were not without difficulties, some of which continued after the NOBP committee reached agreement with Marathon, which represented the industry in bargaining.

At the BP refinery in Whiting, Ind., after engaging in widespread bad faith bargaining, management locked out more than 800 members of USW Local 7-1 in March in an effort to force members into cutting jobs and eliminating union rights. That work-stoppage was continuing as USW@Work went to press.

In addition, members of Local 5 at Marathon’s facility in Martinez, Calif., launched an unfair labor practice strike in April after local negotiations broke down when Marathon unlawfully refused to apply the national agreement terms that it negotiated for the industry and applied at its other USW-represented locations. 

As members across the country ratify the new agreement, it will raise wages by a total of 15 percent over the life of the contract.

“USW members, across the country, across employers, across our industry, stood together in calling for a fair contract,” said Smith, the NOBP chair. “Workers’ unity and solidarity made this agreement possible.”