On Monday, hundreds of Chevron workers in the San Francisco Bay Area went on strike after voting down the company’s latest contract offer, which workers say contained insufficient wage raises.
The contract covers over 500 workers was struck downUnited Steelworkers (USW), Local 5, members on Sunday. Workers were forced to go on strike after the company said that it had already offered its “last, best and final” contract, according to the union.
“It’s disappointing that Chevron would walk away from the table instead of bargaining in good faith with its dedicated work force,” Mike Smith, USW’s National Oil Bargaining Program chair, said in a statement. “USW members continued to report for work throughout the pandemic so our nation could meet its energy needs. They deserve a fair contract that reflects their sacrifice.”
The company has brought inWorkers to replace the union members that it has been training for a year. According to the union, the workers were operating under a rolling daily extension after the February expiration of their latest contract.
The refinery workers sayInsufficient wage rises are the main reason for the strike. USW, currently representing about 30,000 oil workersIn negotiations with chemical employers and oil companies, reached a national agreement to refiners in FebruaryTo raise wages by 12 per cent over four years.
Local 5 asked for an additional 5 percent pay bump to reflect the higher living costs in San Francisco. it’s estimatedIndividuals must earn at least $80,000 per year to live comfortably.
The company offered additional increases of between 2.5 and 3.5 percent. “We countered with just a minimal bump and we were told by the corporation that there was no movement, no money,” Local 5 Vice President B.K. White told KTVU. “We feel when a company can report 15 billion profitThe highest profit since 2014, they can give the people whose backs they’re making these earnings off of, give them a little boost to help them out.”
Chevron reported record profits in 2021 earlier this year. After suffering a loss in 2020 of $5.5 billion, the company saw its profits rise to $15.6 billion in 2021. Despite losing money in 2020, the company paid M.K. Wirth, nearly $29 millionIn compensation. The company recently promisedIt promised its shareholders that they would be receiving dividends from current high-oil prices. Therefore, it increased its stock purchase program to as high as $10 billion annually.
In response to workers’ demands, the company has said that their asks “exceeded what the company believes to be reasonable.” The company has said that it plans to resume talks, though the union says it hasn’t been contactedFor further negotiations.
Jonah Furman (labor reporter) says the strike could end in a week. just be the firstIn a series of strikes, the roughly 200 USW bargaining unit in negotiations were subject to a number of strikes. “[T]his could be the first shot in a much wider work stoppage, like the one that happened in 2015, only this time against the backdrop of high political stakes re: domestic oil supply, massive inflation that is primarily dramatized through gas prices, and a generalized increase in pro-worker sentiment,” Furman wrote in his newsletter, Who gets the bird?.
