Chevron oil workers win better contract due to organizing drive

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4 SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 1990 A new three-year contract between the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW) at Chevron in El Segundo, Calif., reflects both the success of an organizing campaign and the limits of a leadership without a clear class struggle perspective.

Through an internal organizing campaign in this open-shop that was begun in the fall of 1987, union membership rose from 42% to 97%. With this increased membership, we were able to gain a contract even better than the national one in some areas. We got the national wage increase of 80 cents-per-hour in the first year (about 5.3%), 5% in the second year,. and 4.5% in the final year. Medical contributions from employers are to increase about $50 each year of the three-year contract.

In addition to sharing these national gains, some El Segundo classifications secured major wage adjustments, winning gains averaging 10% more than workers in those classifications elsewhere.

Misleading portrayal

Although this achievement was one which the members and their leaders can be proud of, the negotiating committee, in making their recommendation for a "yes" ratification vote, erroneously portrayed the outcome as "breaking" the national pattern.

This was misleading for two reasons. First, a large number of workers, including trainees and marketing, only got the general increase of the national pattern. Second, it miseducated the membership on the correlaDave Campbell is an executive board member of OCAW Local 1-547 at Chevron in El Segundo, Calif.

Kathleen O'Nan/Socialist Action tion of forces involved in determining the national pattern.

The National Petroleum Refiners Association, the oil industry association, sets the negotiating stance with OCAW. The individual companies, in return for agreeing not to break ranks on the national pattern, are promised aid from other companies in meeting commitments to their customers in case of a strike.

Under this set-up, individual wage-classification adjustments, depending on local needs, are permissible, but a general increase in either wages or benefits that would exceed the national pattern is not.

Thus, the organizing campaign begun at El Segundo, accompanied by the rise in militancy and self-confidence, has to be extended throughout the international union in order to truly "break" the pattern and give all workers the kind of general increase that only some El Segundo workers got.

On the down side, the new contract contains concessions which could have been fought off by the rank and file if the leadership had had a class-struggle perspective.

Over the last decade, the OCAW maintenance force has dwindled through attrition, and the jobs have been given to contractors who either have no union or a do-nothing union with a sweetheart contract.

The contract also calls for new classifications of dual- and multi-craft mechanics, not just the traditional singlecraft mechanics. This was agreed to by the leadership in exchange for a verbal agreement from the bosses to "back out" contractors and hire more OCAW mechanics.

One major problem with this, aside from the failure to get any promises in writing, is that it plays into the bosses' strategy of dividing the work force—be it OCAW or contractor. The union strategy should be based on uniting all sectors of the work force in a fight with the true opponents-the bosses.

Workers inspired

The OCAW gains inspired the workers in one of these contract organizations. Drivers at El Segundo's Motor Transport put so happy to get rid of them, letting them sign OCAW cards. Chevron then recognized OCAW as the bargaining agent of these workers without a fight, for fear of upsetting its own OCAW workers.

After the startling success of the internal campaign, which called for utilizing the workers' control of production to fight the bosses, Chevron instituted a new policy throughout the company. Dropping their open anti-worker stance, they adopted a form of quality of work life (QWL) as a way of diverting the increasing "radical" ideas at El Segundo and preventing the extension of those ideas to other Chevron plants.

But in a complete 180 degree turn from what forced the bosses into a better contract, the union leadership dropped their previous "wait-and-see" policy on QWL and agreed to participate.

As an example of this complete change, the contract has a new preamble which states, "Both parties recognize that we are entering into an historic endeavor in the field of labor relations and that we are undertaking this new proposed relationship with the full intention of fostering an innovative labor relations structure, minimizing the traditional adversarial roles, and emphasizing mutual trust and good faith."

While the average worker does indeed want cooperation in the work place, the relationship of bosses and workers, as was stated in the organizing campaign, is inevitably adversarial because the bosses' constant drive for increased profit causes them to try to drive down labor costs, including wages, benefits, and safety devices.

Until production for profit is eliminated, there can be no other way than struggle to defend workers' interests.

However on the economic gains, the contract is having an impact at other refineries in the area and other Chevron facilities. Calls have even come in to the El Segundo plant from Chevron's large, non-union refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The successful organizing campaign of El Segundo should be extended to other locations.

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the last five months, and we are maintaining

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HERONSEM OCAW SAYS NOI