HOUSTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - The international president of
the United Steelworkers (USW) union, Thomas Conway, called on
Monday for refinery and chemical plant workers to include
decarbonization as part of contract proposals to be made to U.S.
oil companies in January.
In remarks to the USW national oil bargaining policy
conference, Conway said decarbonization projects should be
viewed as necessary capital investment programs.
“Here sits the capital investment program that we need to
keep our refineries up and running and keep the pressure off of
them from the communities that would otherwise shut them down,”
Conway said.
Officials from local unions representing 30,000 refinery and
chemical plant workers are meeting online this week to develop
proposals to be used in talks in January with Marathon Petroleum
Corp, which is representing the nation’s oil companies
for the first time.
Marathon, the nation’s largest refiner, was chosen to
replace Shell Oil Co, the U.S. arm of Royal Dutch Shell
, which was the lead negotiator for the oil companies
from the late 1990s through 2019. Shell has reduced the number
of the refineries it operates in the United States and by the
end of this year will operate only one plant.
The 2022 contract talks will come after national refining
capacity fell 4.5% in the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Leslie Adler)
