Tuesday April 8 was district council meeting and registration for the USW District 13 conference. Larry Birchfield led the meeting, there are 200 locals in our district, and approximately 60 are involved with the district.
Malcolm Brown discussed the counsel’s financial portfolio followed by Joe Christy who gave a little history about the counsel. The first conference was held Feb. 22 and 23, 1907 and the main issue back then was to organize, later the objectives moved more toward legislation.
The counsel is going to try to make a directory of the locals in our district.
Legislative reports were given by Lee Medley, Brent Petite, Rick Perike, and Speedy Harper.
Financial report given by Daryl Kyle.
John warren talked about Alky units.
Motion made and passed: to have national lobby legislatures to remove asbestos from our industry for good.
The next "Oil Worker" should show how many barrels of gas companies are importing into the US now.
Wednesday April 7 ----Start of USW District 13 Conference
Started at 0900 hrs.
Rules of procedure read and passed.
Rick Erpelding of emergency response talked about the process and how it works.
Multiple speakers talked. (list available)
Memoriam passed with the list of brothers and sisters in district 13 that passed away as a result of accidents in our industry.
Passed: Political Action, Emmett Sheppard Activism Award, PAC Check off resolution, (copies available)
Thursday April 8 and
Friday April 9
We broke off into groups and went to different workshops
Organizing for Membership inside the local, Understanding, Management Rights, Labor Law for Local Unions, Structure and elements of a collective bargaining agreement, making the grievance procedure work.
Saturday April 10
We all met in conference room again, several speakers.
Passed: SOAR, trade and globalization, strikes, union label, future conferences, rapid response.
End of the District Council meeting.
Saturday afternoon April 10
Shell District Council met led by Eric Hamilton (Port Arthur) and Jim Lefton.
Oil Bargaining conference will begin Sept. 14 through 17 in Dallas. We will also have the Shell District Council meeting at that time.
Shell Oil Co. has no interest in meeting with the council and this time, they are trying to work with each group individually, we all agreed to communicate regularly and keep each other informed on what Shell is up to at each location.
Port Arthur just won an arbitration case on the companies "Life Saving Rules"
New addition to "Life Saving Rules" will now include cell phones, even if turned off.
"Substance Abuse Policy" coming, will not affect Shell Deer Park
Refinery in Montreal Canada is closing down in June and will become a terminal unless a buyer can be found before then.
Employee evaluations are coming to Deer Park, asked the other facilities how it was working in their locations, not much going on at the other locations
Discussed operator maintenance with other locations and what they are doing. Not much on operator maintenance
Associated Maintenance Letter of Agreement from 1984, Convent has filed a cease and desists until a training program is in place, pending a ruling
Each local gave a general report of what is going on at their location and what action is being taken, after that we ended the meeting and agreed to meet again in September
The Oil Worker Issue 1.pdf
