(MENAFN- Gulf Times) The United Steelworkers, which represents 30,000 US oil workers, called on four more plants to join the biggest strike since 1980 as talks with Royal Dutch Shell, negotiating a labour contract for oil companies, dragged on.
The USW, with members at more than 200 refineries, fuel terminals, pipelines and chemical plants across the US, asked workers at Motiva Enterprises' plants in Texas and Louisiana to join a nationwide walkout. The work stoppage began on February 1 with workers leaving nine plants from California to Texas, and expanded to two BP refineries in the Midwest a week later. The union has rejected seven contract offers from Shell, which is representing companies including Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp.
An agreement would end a strike at US plants that account for almost 20% of the country's refining capacity. It's the first national walkout of US oil workers since 1980, when a work stoppage lasted three months. The USW represents workers at plants that together account for 64% of US fuel output.
"The industry's refusal to meaningfully address safety issues through good faith bargaining gave us no other option but to expand our work stoppage," said USW International President Leo W Gerard in a statement.
Earlier, Ray Fisher, a spokesman for The Hague, Netherlands-based Shell, said in an e-mail that discussions ended Friday without an agreement being reached.
The USW has been asking for tougher measures to prevent fatigue and to keep union workers rather than contract employees on the job, statements posted on the group's website show. The union said on Thursday that Shell's seventh offer failed to address safety concerns "in any sort of meaningful or enforceable way" and instructed members to prepare to join the strike "if called upon."
The union previously called strikes at: Tesoro Corp's plants in Martinez and Carson, California, and Anacortes, Washington; Marathon Petroleum Corp's Catlettsburg complex in Kentucky and Galveston Bay site in Texas; Shell's Deer Park complex; LyondellBasell Industries NV's Houston facility; and BP's Whiting and Toledo refineries in the Midwest.
The latest sites are Motiva's Port Arthur refinery in Texas, the nation's largest, and plants in Convent and Norco, Louisiana. Shell's chemical facility in Norco was also called out on strike. Motiva is a joint venture between Shell and Saudi Arabian Oil Co.
More than 5,200 workers have walked out, USW statements show.
Tesoro said earlier this month that its plants could run for a "very long period" during the walkout. The San Antonio- based refiner, which owns the most capacity in the western US, halted all fuel production at its Northern California refinery after workers walked out. United Steelworkers members operate refinery units, perform maintenance and work in labs at the plants.
The USW and Shell began negotiations on January 21 amid the biggest collapse in oil prices since 2008, driven largely by surging output from US shale formations that cut oil prices by 49% in the second half of 2014.
Refiners in the Standard & Poor's 500 have tripled in value since the beginning of 2012, when the steelworkers last negotiated an agreement. Marathon and Tesoro went on that year to take their place among the 10 best performers in the S&P 500 Index.
The national agreement, which addresses wages, benefits and health and safety, serves as the pattern that companies use to negotiate local contracts. Individual USW units may still decide to strike if the terms they're offered locally don't mirror those in the national agreement.
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