St. Paul Park, MN – As of May 2, the Teamsters who work at the Marathon Refinery in Saint Paul Park, Minnesota will have been locked out for 100 days after a one-day strike unless a deal is reached before then to settle their contract negotiations. At this writing, April 28, by all accounts neither side appears ready to back down any time soon.

The Teamsters have cited safety as one of the major reasons they went on strike in January. In 2018 a large explosion rocked the city of Superior, Wisconsin at the Husky Refinery and caused mass evacuations of much of the city. Teamsters point out that the Marathon Refinery uses similar chemicals and that they are trying to protect the Twin Cities metro community from an accident like the one that happened in Superior.

Dave Marlatt is one of the locked-out members of Teamster Local 120. He and his wife Amber, along with their two young children, live 1.8 miles from the refinery, well with in the range of immediate danger in an accident.

Fight Back! spoke to him in length about what exactly is at stake in these contract negotiations and the following is some of what we learned from him.

Marlatt said that along with keeping the community in general safe, he is fighting to keep his family safe too. He said that a few years ago Marathon brought in an old SDA (solvent de-asphalting) unit that they bought from somewhere in Texas. When you buy an old unit like that you do not have to pull all of the permits you would need to install a new unit, so they did this to save money and cut steps. Dave said “It’s not a good unit. It requires constant operator care.”

At the same time as Marathon added this SDA unit that requires extra care to keep operational and safe, it is also trying to take away the designated SDA operator so there would no longer be someone assigned just to provide that constant care to the unit. They instead want someone to look after the SDA unit and another unit at the same time. To make things worse, Marathon now wants to also have that operator who oversees the two units take on the running of a boiler unit on top of the already hard to manage work load.

Marlatt said, “So when something goes wrong in two places, what do you want us to do? They say they have procedures, but those procedures aren’t there. We need a dedicated SDA operator.”

One thing that stood out in the conversation was just how large these units are. In some cases, he was talking about machines in terms of how many football fields across or tall they were, so the travel time just to get between units in an emergency is a serious factor.

In this work, you need to do everything correctly every single time. Even one mistake could spell disaster. Now as Marathon tries to save expenses by cutting corners it is increasingly hard to ensure that safety that the community depends on and should be able to take for granted. Marlatt stated, “We are fighting to keep stuff safe and running how it has been. But now the company wants us to do more work with less people.”

Since getting his job at Marathon, Marlatt has had to put out fires three times. He described two of them as “small” and one as “large.” For context, the small ones still involved units measured in football field lengths, but were contained more easily and did not spread to multiple units.

Marlatt said that when a fire starts, you have to be careful. You cannot just pour water on it, or even extinguish the fire in some cases, because of many dangerous factors beyond a conventional fire. Iron sulfide is created, which lights on fire when exposed to air. In one of the fires, they managed to contain the iron sulfide, but that was only possible because of the immediate response time, which is being put in jeopardy by management's plan to have workers look after multiple units.

If a fire is not immediately contained it can spread to multiple units which could result in a much more serious disaster. In a worst-case scenario Marlatt says that it could put life in jeopardy for a distance of 30 to 50 miles around. The refinery sits in a suburb of Saint Paul so millions of Minnesotans could be put in grave danger in a disaster scenario. Some of the possible dangers include not just the blast or fire itself, but also formation of an extremely hazardous cloud, which could waft over the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area. That cloud would contain chemicals like hydrofluoric acid, which is capable of boiling your skin off of your body on contact. Additionally, the cloud would have the potential to fatally attack the calcium in a person’s body.

“To be honest, this just barely scratches the surface of it,” said Marlatt.

Meanwhile, against the backdrop of the lockout in Saint Paul Park, ExxonMobil says they intend to lock out refinery workers in Beaumont, Texas as of May 1 if they have still not reached a contract settlement in their own negotiations with members of United Steel Workers (USW) Local 13-243. The union contract at the Beaumont refinery has been expired since January 11. The existing contract requires a 75-day notice before any lockout or strike. Both the union and the company did issue 75-day notices on February 15 and now the company has taken it a step further, saying they plan to go ahead with the lockout on May 1, rejecting the union’s request to extend the contract for one year while they keep bargaining. Like the Teamsters at Marathon, the USW members at the Beaumont refinery say they are fighting for the safety of the community.

When and how these disputes between safety and larger profits will be settled remains to be seen, but it was clear that the workers do not intend to back down and allow the community to be put in danger.

#StPaulParkMN #PeoplesStruggles #Teamsters #Strikes #MarathonRefineryPark

St. Paul Park, MN – On March 1, the lockout of Teamsters at Marathon’s Saint Paul Park refinery entered its sixth week, after a 24-hour strike by the Teamsters on January 21. Marathon is pushing an agenda of job cuts and attacks on safety, so little progress has been made at the table.

Teamsters do not appear to be backing down and say they will keep fighting for as long as needed to keep the community safe.

The union members have been picketing at entrances and other key locations around the refinery. They have set up headquarters at the Saint Paul Park American Legion building, as well as encampments around burn-barrels to stay warm through some of the coldest stretches in recent history.

Members of many unions have been showing up to picket with the Teamsters and to drop off supplies like food and much-needed firewood to keep them warm through the cold nights. As temperatures begin to rise with the coming spring, the Teamsters remain in high spirits. One thing is clear: the Teamsters are dug in, not going anywhere, and are ready to stay out for the long haul if that is what is needed to get across their message of safety.

#SaintPaulParkMN #PeoplesStruggles #Strikes #TeamstersLocal120 #MarathonRefineryPark

St. Paul Park, MN – The Teamsters at Marathon Refinery in Saint Paul Park have now been locked out for more than 28 days and the two sides remain far apart. Negotiations resumed on February 15 and February 17, but the Teamsters saw little movement from management.

Marathon management has brought in a union-busting attorney from the Jones Day law firm, but the picket lines remain well staffed and spirits are strong. Trade unionists from many unions join the lines daily and cars driving by honk and wave constantly keeping up a festive atmosphere despite the cold of winter.

Ryan Bierman – a union steward with the Teamsters – says “We are just out here doing our deal. We’re pushing forward and really appreciate all the support from other unions and the community.”

Tylor Sardeson is a ten-year employee at Marathon and is one of the locked-out Teamsters. He had the following to say, “We’re 28 days in and that’s just the tip. Spirits are high as we’re fighting for a good contract.”

It appears that this lockout and contract dispute may continue for a long time to come.

#SaintPaulParkMN #PeoplesStruggles #TeamstersLocal120 #MarathonRefineryPark

St. Paul Park, MN – More than 75 vehicles joined a Valentine’s Day car caravan, February 14, to show support for members of Teamster Local 120, who are locked out at Marathon oil refinery after a one-day strike. Safety is the big issue. Marathon trying to contract out vital work at a lower cost, increasing the chance of major industrial accidents.

Teamsters have received broad backing from the trade union movement.

The February 14 car caravan took place in subzero temperatures. “No weather can stop Minnesota’s labor movement,” stated Claire Van den Berghe, the event co-planner and UFCW 1189 organizer.

#SaintPaulParkMN #PeoplesStruggles #TeamstersLocal120 #MarathonRefineryPark

St. Paul Park, MN – On February 4, with wind chill readings below zero, members of a wide collection of unions gathered for an evening rally at the Marathon Refinery picket line, where Teamsters who work at the refinery have been locked out for two weeks after a 24-hour strike.

Union leaders took to the stage and spoke in solidarity with the locked out workers, including several leaders from Teamsters 120, which represents the refinery workers, along with speakers from the Minnesota Nurses Association, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, Laborers Local 563, The Awood Center, AFSCME Local 3800, UFCW 1189 and others. Members of Minnesota Workers United were among the rally participants.

Cherrene Horazuk, president of AFSCME 3800, which represents clerical workers at the University of Minnesota, said, “The pandemic has laid bare the corporate greed for all to see. Workers are risking their lives while the big companies are raking in profits, showing no concern for worker safety, especially if they can turn a faster buck. But when workers stand together, they have power to turn things around. We’ve seen that with healthcare and education workers especially demanding safe workplaces. And Teamsters 120 members are setting an example for the labor movement as a whole that, when we stand together and fight back, we will win and we will make sure workers are safe on the job.”

The cold temperatures and blustery winds did not stop hundreds of union members and supporters from showing up to the rally and has not stopped the Teamsters 120 members from keeping their picket lines strong. The Teamsters 120 members say they are fighting to keep the community safe and avoid accidents like the explosion at the Husky Refinery in 2018 that caused an evacuation in the city of Superior, Wisconsin.

#StPaulParkMN #PeoplesStruggles #Teamsters #MinnesotaWorkersUnited #TeamstersLocal120 #MarathonRefineryPark