Oil Giant BP Locks Out Workers at Its Last Unionized Refinery in US

For the last five months, oil giant British Petroleum (BP) has locked 800 workers out of their jobs at a crude oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana. The facility, located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, is BP’s last unionized oil refinery in the United States. BP says it is pursuing “modernized job structures, training, and upskilling,” but workers and their union—United Steelworkers Local 7-1—say that the company has not bargained in good faith, that its contract proposals pose blatant existential threats to workers’ jobs, pay, and collective bargaining rights, and that the company is illegally trying to crush the union out of existence with the lockout. In this episode of Working People, we speak with three locked out workers at the BP oil refinery in Whiting: Eric Schultz, president of USW Local 7-1; Leno Miller, assistant griever for USW Local 7-1; Tim Powell, a 19-year member of USW Local 7-1, and a volunteer for the lockout assistance committee.

Additional links/info:

• USW Local 7-1 Official Lockout Update/Support Page
• USW Local 7-1 Facebook page and Instagram
• Sarah Lazare, Workday Magazine / The American Prospect, “Locked out refinery workers say BP is trying to ‘starve us,’ crush union”
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “I survived the rig explosion that caused the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This is what I saw”

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

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