Disturbing day for me

[hotwheels]

As most of you know i work in an oil refinery and we the workers are unionized. Our plant has been unionized since the refinery first opened up. As a union member, i have been a recording secretary, vice president and president of the local. With that, i have always allowed people to voice their opinions about not liking unions and how unions are destroying the country and companies that are unionized, but here is why i think a union is important and why i think people don't understand the entire union standards.

In 2005 a british pertroleum refinery in Texas City, Texas, had an explosion which killed 15 people and injured 170. Right after that explosion, the federal government put together a board to investigate what lead up to the explosion and the resulting deaths. The ending result was profit over safety and management killed people for money. Once the report (baker report) was released to the public, the government went to america's oil refinery's and performed a safety inspection and found most refinery's to have serious safety violations. (now understand, serious in our business is really serious, not just a tripping or slipping hazard). So, our union U.S.W. sat down with the major oil company's and tried to negotiate a new safety program which would involve actual members of the union's being involved with safety audits and decisions. The major oil company's flat out refused, and said they have been handling safety properly, will fix the serious violations and use the items as described in the baker report as a new guide line.

Well most americans may or may not have known about the risk involved in working in oil refinerys, but we baby sit a bomb and try to keep the public safe at the risk of our own lives. Many of my union brothers and sisters have died do to refinery management arrogance and the fact that we are replaceable for the cost of a phone call to a local job service. Management also knows the american peoples dislike of the unions, so they know they can get away with killing us for money.

Here we are again today we just lost another 5 brothers and sisters:

An explosion killed five workers and critically injured two others Friday at the Tesoro Corp. oil refinery north of Seattle in the deadliest refinery blast in five years.

Two injured workers—Matt Gumbel, 34 years old, and Lew Janz, 41—suffered major burns and remain hospitalized in critical condition after a fire broke out at the Anacortes, Wash. plant, located 70 miles north of Seattle. Mr. Gumbel joined Tesoro in 2007 and Mr. Janz in 2000. The employees who died at the refinery include Daniel Aldridge, Matt Bowen and Darrin Hoines. Kathryn Powell, 29, and Donna Van Dreumel, 36, died later in the day after being airlifted to a hospital. Tesoro released their names Friday evening.

In a news release, the company said that Chief Executive Bruce Smith and Chief Operating Officer Everett D. Lewis will arrive in Anacortes Saturday to assess the situation and meet with refinery workers and the community.

The site of the fire was isolated and the rest of the plant continues to operate at one-third of the normal production rate, the company said. Tesoro said that it will conduct an internal investigation and that several government agencies are also investigating the accident.

The cause hasn't been determined. It is the most destructive refinery explosion since the blast five years ago that killed 15 people and injured 170 at BP PLC's refinery in Texas City, Texas.

Markets were closed for the Good Friday holiday, so oil and product prices weren't immediately affected. Electronic trading will resume Sunday.

The incident at the 120,000-barrel-a-day refinery comes during a period of transition for the San Antonio-based company, which announced this week that it hired a new chief executive from ConocoPhillips. Greg Goff, a senior vice president at Conoco, will be taking over in June, replacing Mr. Smith. The blast will likely prove costly for Tesoro, which, as an independent refiner of fuels, has been hit hard by the relatively high cost of crude oil and low demand for fuel. Investigations by federal agencies into the incident could tie up the company for months, or even years.

"It is just a very, very serious accident," said Daniel Horowitz, a spokesman for the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, a federal agency that investigates large industrial accidents. At least six investigators from the agency were on their way to Anacortes, Mr. Horowitz said. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration also investigates such incidents. Last April, state environmental regulators fined the Anacortes refinery $85,700 for 17 serious safety and health violations that could lead to death or serious physical injury.

Friday's accident comes as a probe continues into an October fire at Tesoro's Salt Lake City refinery. No one was injured in that incident, which temporarily shut down a portion of an interstate highway and damaged equipment.

BP continues to deal with legal issues relating to the March 23, 2005, incident at Texas City, and the refinery only returned to full operation last summer. BP has been fined at least $150 million by federal agencies.

So far, Tesoro has only shut down one area of the Anacortes plant, near the blast site at a unit that makes naphtha, a key gasoline component, said John McDarment, human resources manager at the refinery. He said that at the time of Friday's blast, all of the employees killed or injured in the explosion were putting a unit back in service after a maintenance project. Many refinery accidents happen during the restart or shutdown of units.

Tesoro Chief Financial Officer Greg Wright said other units, including the main crude-processing unit, were still operating. "We will have to evaluate when things settle down whether we continue to operate those units and consider going to an alternate plan."

Mr. Wright added that even if other units needed to be shut, Tesoro would continue to supply the market either by buying oil products on the open market or getting them from its other West Coast refineries. The company has seven refineries in the western U.S., with a combined capacity of about 665,000 barrels a day.

Tesoro's Anacortes plant is the third-biggest of four major refineries in the area. Larger plants owned by BP and Royal Dutch Shell PLC, and a smaller one owned by Conoco, are located within about 50 miles of the Tesoro plant on Puget Sound.

So why is it people continue to blame unions for everything wrong with america, for destroying company's, yet nobody ever wants to look at the company's we have unionized in order to try to stay alive? This isn't about a wage, insurance, bonus's ect, this is about life and death. The major oil company's have shutdown the unions voice, won't allow us to be involved with safety. These company's continue to make life and death decisions and they continue to send we oil workers to the grave all for profit. How much were these brothers and sisters lifes worth? Was it worth this?

All i can say is, keeping hating and blaming the unions for everything that is wrong with america. Continue to fight to lower union wages and benefits, that way people can die for $10.00hr with no benefits verses $20.00hr with benefits. Does it matter? Once you are dead, you are dead and there is no amount of money that will change that. What can change is people waking up and atleast support unions for their safety stance. In the end, we want everyone to go home, even if that means the company we work for looses money that day. Isn't life more important then money? Please take a minute and look at this: Weekly List of Refinery Events What this is, is a list of problems within oil refinery's. These are made public by our union on a weekly basis. If you live near a refinery, check to see if your refinery had an incident that you didn't know happened. You may be suprised.

[already7]

I hate to hear it when people suffer or die because some company, person, or group of individuals didn't want to get the right safety equipment, or wait till they got the right tools to properly do the job.
I am a union worker also, and unless the union dies >>> I will always be a union worker. Most people that bad mouth the union don't realize that the only reason that they are making better money is because of the unions! If we didn't people out there fighting for us, and negotiating for us to have a better life,,,,, then they would still be making $5 an hour for a construction related trade.
If you make a living at a computer, or you are a doctor or something like that, then good for you that you might not need a union.
I make a living with my hands! I need all of my fingers and toes to make my living also. Without the backing of the union, if I said that looks too dangerous to work on, or I need to think about this for a minute because this is very unsafe. Most companies would fire your ass!!!!!! Plain and simple.
I have the backing of the union and they will stand behind me if I am fired for using my own discretion as far as safety goes! My job requires me to get into ditches that are deep, go up on man lifts that are less than stable to say the least, and be around equipment that can kill you, maim you or seriously injure everyone around it.
I don't dislike non-union workers, but I do freaking hate it with a purple passion when non-union workers bad mouth union workers for ruining the world. They have been listening to people in management too long, or they are just too stupid to make a reasonable decision on their own, and they would rather be someone's "yes sir man."

For a good example >>> See how many non union workers work at or build Refineries, Power houses, or large industrial places.

We get more safety training each year than most businesses get in a life time.

UNION RULES!

[JJohnson]

That sucks man Im sorry to hear it. I pay union dues and think its worth every penny, Saved my ass from retarded management in the past. That mananger is no longer a police officer because they didn't know how to be a patrolman let alone a supervisor. They constantly screwed up and violated peoples rights including officers on almost a daily basis. Yeah I was happy for that day and the department has been better for it since the day that person was relieved of duty and the union had a big hand in it.

[92NOTCH]

that real sucks man, but that is pretty much the US way of doing things anymore, what will make ME the most money and screw everyone else even at the cost of lives to keep my pockets full. I dont understand how some people sleep at night.

[dseward]

I love this site and the last thing I will do is get you all pissed at me however, having grown up in the north and then moving south I will say that if you can, try to look at both sides of this argument. I 100 percent agree that unions did strive to prevent just this type of event... in the beginning. But as with anything political at some point money comes into play. This is where I begin to disagree. I had families who started working when steel was busting Buffalo and killing Lake Erie. I saw my uncle go from so busy we could never see him to closing the last part of Bethlehem Steel. He himself told me that it was cheaper to the company to send the ore overseas and buy it back than it was to process the ore here. I personally did office furniture and ONLY a union certified electrician could connect a simple stupid jumper that can only be plugged in one way. This cost us huge delays in assembly and inflated cost paying a UNION guy for something any monkey could do.

I hope you dont judge me by this but I see both sides. I know for a fact that unions were a needed and helpful organization but they way overstepped (in my opinion) what they should have stood for, thereby eventually costing more than their worth. I know the unions have protected you and I am grateful for that but please dont be angry that I feel somewhat differently than you.

[already7]

Originally Posted by dseward

I love this site and the last thing I will do is get you all pissed at me however, having grown up in the north and then moving south I will say that if you can, try to look at both sides of this argument. I 100 percent agree that unions did strive to prevent just this type of event... in the beginning. But as with anything political at some point money comes into play. This is where I begin to disagree. I had families who started working when steel was busting Buffalo and killing Lake Erie. I saw my uncle go from so busy we could never see him to closing the last part of Bethlehem Steel. He himself told me that it was cheaper to the company to send the ore overseas and buy it back than it was to process the ore here. I personally did office furniture and ONLY a union certified electrician could connect a simple stupid jumper that can only be plugged in one way. This cost us huge delays in assembly and inflated cost paying a UNION guy for something any monkey could do.

I hope you dont judge me by this but I see both sides. I know for a fact that unions were a needed and helpful organization but they way overstepped (in my opinion) what they should have stood for, thereby eventually costing more than their worth. I know the unions have protected you and I am grateful for that but please dont be angry that I feel somewhat differently than you.

Daryl we live in America and your opinion is welcome on this site anytime!

I agree with you on some of your statement. Some unions over price their market and it starts causing trouble for them to keep work. That is why our officials are elected and therefore can be removed if they start acting stupid. You have to be an active member and go to the union meetings so that you know where you stand and to make sure that those people that represent you are not smoking crack and talking crazy as hell!
Where the economy is at right now, you can't go and ask for a 2 dollar an hour raise. That would just be counter-productive and make it harder for the contractors to bid work efficiently and still make a profit. The people that are making things happen in the negotiations need to have a good understanding of what the market will support comfortably, what the workers would like to see, or need, and what the contractors are willing to pay. If the contractors don't make a decent profit, then you will not be working for them.

The job that I just came off of in Mtn. Home, AR., was started by a non-union shop. They did all the underground work (very critical), but they messed several things up. The owner of said non-union shop laughed at my friend's wife in church and said " I will be glad when those union guys lose their ass up here so we can go and finish that building up."
That job was bid for 7 people, from Oct. 1st. till March 20th. 7 people working it for the first 2-3 weeks, then it was down to 4 for the remaining part of the winter and up until last week. Jobs almost never get finished on the date that they want it to. BUT we kicked mucho ass and that is where experience pays off. The college up there said that other shop will not be back on their campus doing plumbing. That is why we go to school for 5 years, and non union only go 4.

[Yellow94GT]

I agree with everyone. Unions are great and benefit alot of people, they just dont know it. I'm in a Steelworkers Union, but as a forklift operator. We work in all weather conditions, especially during the winter. So we are out in the snow and freezing weather. But as part of our contract we get cold weather gear and covers for our forklifts to keep us dry and warm.

[armyed]

Everything has two sides. Its just when you have unions who have literally run companies out of business because they wanted more and more and it starts costing to much to be competitive and won't back down. They are all over the place and corruption is ramped. When you pay a janitor $50 an hour plus full benefits things have gotten out of control. To build almost anything in our country has become so expensive because you have to pay a guy $50k a year to do something that is basic manual labor when other countries can get it done paying someone $10k-$15k. I agree about the safety aspect of the unions though. There needs to be a high standard no matter what the cost, especially when doing a job as dangerous as refining and others alike and should be inspected and looked at by the job force working on whatever it is. In my honest opinion I think a lot of unions are out dated and not needed. Maybe a hybrid type should be created. This of course after we figure out our immigration policy so you can't just be replaced with an illegal immigrant who will work for $5 bucks an hour.

[CmdrDon]

Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of unions for a number of reasons - some of which have already been mentioned. Where safety issues are concerned, they're a good thing. In other areas...not so much.

Speaking specifically to your concerns Doug - I find it interesting that even though they posted a net loss for the year, they will receive a huge windfall from refunded taxes simply by changing their accounting procedures. This is directly from their latest quarterly earnings report:

"During the fourth quarter of 2009, Frontier switched inventory valuation accounting methods from the first-in, first-out (FIFO) method to the last-in, first-out (LIFO) method. As a result of this accounting change, Frontier will receive a one-time tax refund of $85.6 million. In addition, Frontier's Board of Directors has suspended the Company's quarterly cash dividend due to contractual limitations under the restricted payments provision of the Company's senior notes indentures."

In other words...these bozos make money even when they lose their ass. I wish I were so lucky. There's no excuse for this company to be taking shortcuts on valid safety issues.

[dseward]

Shew; being a newbie here I thought I was going to get pummeled on this one. Thanks for taking the time to hear me out. I see we are a very diverse crowd and hopefully we can all learn from one another.

Thanks for your respect and I hope I didnt offend anyone.

D