United Steelworkers members working at BP Whiting
Refinery and public school teachers have a common bond, according to the local
USW president — they both found themselves in a fight to maintain their
collective bargaining rights.
As other striking USW members at refineries across the
country begin returning to work after settling contracts with their companies,
the nearly 1,100 members of USW Local 7-1 in Whiting remain on the picket line.
The main stumbling block, according to Local 7-1
president Dave Danko, is BP's efforts to diminish the local's collective
bargaining rights.
"It's right out of Gov. (Scott) Walker's playbook —
what he did to teachers' unions in Wisconsin," Danko said. "He stayed
away from police and fire departments for some reason and specifically went
after teachers. He made them out to be the devils."
Walker's law, passed in 2011, stripped public workers in
Wisconsin of nearly all their collective bargaining rights and resulted in cuts
in their pensions and health care.
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A BP official said the company believes its proposals to
its local unions are fair and in line with what other local USW unions and its
competitors are agreeing to or have in place.
"We are proposing collective bargaining agreements
for Whiting and Toledo that ensure safe, sustainable and competitive
operations, continue to fairly compensate employees and allow management the
flexibility to make necessary changes during the life of the agreement while
recognizing the traditional bargaining rights afforded to the union," Doug
Sparkman, BP's chief operating officer, Fuels North America, said.
Sparkman added that the company agrees with a pattern
contract reached between the USW's national bargaining team and Shell Oil Co.,
which provides for raises and improvements in staffing and using USW members
for routine maintenance work, two key national issues.
Danko said he hasn't seen a significant movement on BP's
part that would get them where they need to be to settle a new contract.
He said he couldn't speculate whether anti-labor moves by
Indiana lawmakers — including the right-to-work law and efforts under way to
terminate the common construction wage law — are making any difference at the
local bargaining table.
The right-to-work law says people don't have to pay union
dues even if they work at a union shop. The common construction wage law,
adopted in 1935, establishes wage rates paid to construction workers on
Indiana's public works projects.
But Michael Olszanski, outreach coordinator with Indiana
University Northwest's Department of Labor Studies, School of Social Work,
called the right-to-work legislation a direct attack on collective bargaining.
"Certainly right-to-work is not good for unions or
workers," Olszanski said.
He also said that Congress decided in 1935 that
collective bargaining should be encouraged.
Dan Murchek, president of Northwest Indiana Federation of
Labor AFL-CIO, said he's seen an attack on all labor — private and public — in
Indiana over the last four to five years, a phenomenon he attributes to outside
influences affecting legislators.
"it's all about corporations putting profits and
shareholders first," Murchek said.
Still, Danko remains hopeful that a settlement will be
reached soon that maintains the bargaining rights that have been in place for
years.
"We will continue to work with BP to get back to
work. I'm confident at some point we'll agree," Danko said.
In a labor update report issued earlier this month, BP
said it has reached tentative agreements with USW locals in Alaska and at Texas
City Chemicals and with all but one USW local at its U.S. pipeline and terminal
sites.
Regarding the two striking refineries, at Whiting and
Toledo, Ohio, the report stated, "We remain optimistic that through
good-faith negotiations, we can find a mutually beneficial solution that lays
the groundwork for a competitive business, safe operations, good jobs and
economic opportunity for years to come."
Source: Chicago
Tribune
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