2,000 Mobil Refinery Workers Walk Out in Three-State Strike

Almost 2,000 members of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union struck Mobil Oil Corp. refineries Thursday in Southern California, Texas and Washington in a dispute centered on union representation in key refinery jobs.

After contract talks broke down and union members walked off the job, supervisory and management personnel continued to operate the Mobil refineries in Torrance; Beaumont, Tex., and Ferndale, Wash.

Mobil officials pledged to keep the refineries running around-the-clock and predicted that there will be no interruption of gasoline supplies to dealers.

Although the union has reached tentative agreement on a new, two-year master contract with 10 other oil companies nationwide, 450 union members in Torrance and 1,350 union members in Beaumont struck Mobil because of company plans to designate key control room operators as management employees.

Wages and benefits are not primary issues in the California and Texas walkouts, but retirement benefits are an issue in Washington state, where another 180 Mobil employees were on strike.

In Torrance, pickets were out early at gates to the sprawling Mobil refinery, which converts California crude oil into gasoline, jet and diesel fuel and other petroleum products.

Steve Sullivan, president of the union local that represents Mobil workers in Torrance, said the dispute centered on company plans to remove top operational jobs in the refinery from union control.

“If that happens at Mobil, then two years or four years down the road at subsequent contract talks, they will attempt to pull other jobs out of the collective bargaining ranks,” Sullivan said.

Mobil wants to remove 40 positions from union jurisdiction, including the head operator who handles controls on refining units, Sullivan said.

At Beaumont, Mobil is building a new computerized control system that is the focus of dispute.

B. H. Blackmon, general manager of the Mobil refinery in Beaumont, said in a statement, “The key issue in dispute is not wages or benefits but rather who will direct our operations in the new computerized control system that is now being installed.”

Blackmon said employees in the control center will direct operations in several process units and will make decisions that have always been the responsibility of management.

“The union wants these jobs included in its bargaining unit,” he said. “To structure the jobs in this fashion would be an inefficient, uneconomical business decision. We cannot take such a narrow view.”

Sullivan expressed concern that Mobil might eventually install a similar computerized control center in Torrance. The union is also concerned about safety, Sullivan said.

The Torrance refinery has been the focus of increasing attention by the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the City of Torrance in the wake of a thunderous explosion and fire Nov. 24.

In recent weeks, the union has distributed leaflets to nearby residents warning that the plant cannot be operated safely without them.

Citing reports from a Washington-based environmental group, the union warned that an accidental release of lethal hydrofluoric acid from the refinery could create a disaster like the chemical leak at a Union Carbide plant that killed more than 2,000 people in Bhopal, India, in 1984.

Wyman D. Robb, manager of Mobil’s Torrance refinery, said in a statement that about 300 non-union and management personnel would operate the refinery around-the-clock during the strike.

And he defended the operation as safe, pointing to Mobil’s record during a three-month union walkout in 1980.

But workers on the picket line disputed the company’s assertion.

“It’s scary because you never know when something’s going to blow,” machinist Linda Peters said. “It’s a very dangerous place to work.”

No new negotiations have been scheduled in the strike.

In addition to the three Mobil refineries, another 850 union members were on strike Thursday at BP America plants in Toledo, Ohio, and Marcus Hook, Penn.