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The Workman’s Committee voted to bring the company’s last offer to the membership. The reasons for this will be explained at Tuesday’s informational meeting along with what exactly the offer is. Being a Democratic Union, this will be secret ballot vote with a majority rule to either accept or reject. The Workman’s Committee is recommending that you reject this offer. Some things need to be said so the voting members understand fully what has gone on during these negotiations.

First and foremost, the Workman’s Committee and the membership should be commended for standing up to true Union beliefs and trying to negotiate more positions in this refinery for people in this community above and beyond what we have now. This company of ours has been taking advantage of non-regular employees for way too long, and it’s time to stop this. We tried like hell, but the company is adamant on having this competitive advantage on their competition regardless of how outrageous the profits they make are. In their opinion, profits are much more important than people. After the company refused to consider hiring a ROSE after 1000 hours worked, we modified our proposal to read as follows:

Road Oil Seasonal Extra’s hired as non-regular employees, upon attaining 1,000 hours cumulative service, shall receive a R.O.S.E. seniority number and have the first rights to job openings in the Process and Laboratory Divisions.

Each person shall meet the minimum company hiring requirements, and possess the minimum qualifications required for the position available.

Road Oil Seasonal Extra’s employed on January 31,2002 will be credited for their accumulated service, and receive a R.O.S.E. seniority number based on that service.

The plant managers response to this was that regardless of how long these people may have worked here and how good an employee they may be, at the time there is a job opening for a regular employee there may be a person that has never worked here, that we have no idea of his or her work habits or anything else about this person, but he wants the right to hire this person anyway.

Even the people they decide to hire as regular employees don’t get the respect they deserve. One of the proposals the committee put on the table was to give mechanical, laboratory and warehouse employees the equivalent of operator A pay. This too was modified after it was rejected by the plant manager. Instead of A pay we proposed:

The parties agree that the Mechanical Division, Laboratory Division, Warehouse Division, Gauger and Janitor will receive an inequity adjustment of 50 cents per hour.

Bruce Brodie dismissed both of these proposals as fast as they were put on the table. In fact, he stated for the record, that these people don’t deserve this increase because the company can go on the street and find anyone to fill these positions whereas this isn’t possible for operators If this isn’t a slap in the face then what is? His other reasoning was that the corporation doesn’t allow mechanical employees to be paid higher than operators. How can this be true given the fact that just a few years ago the mechanics were offered a pay increase in exchange for the janitors job. He is either lying, misinformed or he just repeats what someone else tells him to say.

This mistrust of the company is what led us to another one of our proposals. They claim they will treat us the same as everyone else in the company when it comes to medical and dental insurance. We don’t trust them, with good reason, so we proposed the following:

If the Company attempts to modify the ExxonMobil Medical or Dental Plans, the Union will be given sixty (60) days advance notice of any changes in the terms and conditions which reduces the benefits provided employees under the terms and conditions under said plans except that any adjustment in the contribution rates provided by the terms and conditions shall not be considered changes requiring the notice provided herein.

When the notice is given to the Union as provided in the above paragraph, upon request by the Union the Company will bargain with respect to the type of benefits affected by the change to be provided employees in the bargaining unit, and if the Union is dissatisfied with the results of bargaining, it may give the Company sixty (60) days notice suspending its obligation under Article XIX.

Even though this is virtually the same language Beaumont has in their contract, they refuse to give us this also. They claim we don’t need it. The reason we do need it is very apparent. For quite some time we have had a letter of agreement that we would be treated the same as salaried employees when it comes to the dental plan. This past January only the represented employees at this refinery were not given the company’s matching contributions for the dental insurance increase. They claim this was a mistake. How is it this mistake was so exclusive?

Since these negotiations began, we have been lied to, stolen from and disrespected. This needs to stop. On Wednesday you can send this message.

Tuesday there will be an informational meeting at 5:45 pm. Wednesday the vote will be taken. The polls will open at 5:00 am and close at 6:30 pm.

We couldn’t help but notice that the goodhearted fun some people were having using the Guestbook section of this web site has taken a turn for the worse. Some of the entries have shown a lack of taste while others appear to be leaning toward personal attacks. For this reason, we are asking the web master to try to find a way to screen the entrees while removing the current distasteful submissions. Though we understand the frustration many of you feel, we ask that you rise above this situation and remember that this is public domain. That means that your children or your grandmother has access to this sight. Please treat others with the respect that you would want them to show your grandmother.