Back To Work! Tesoro Operations Resume Thursday

The majority of oil workers at a Martinez refinery will head back into work tomorrow after a nearly two-month strike, a company spokeswoman said today.

Workers represented by the United Steelworkers Local 5 ratified an agreement with Tesoro Corp. on Tuesday, Tracy Scott, a member of Local 5, said in an email. The oil workers got instructions today for their work duties and the refinery will begin resuming normal operations tomorrow, said refinery spokeswoman Patricia Deutsche.

“We’re excited that it’s over and we’ve got them back,” Deutsche said. “We look forward to returning to normal operations and we welcome them back.”

The national United Steelworkers union reached an agreement with a consortium of oil companies represented by Shell oil on March 12, but each refinery and local labor group must reach its own agreement.

Tesoro reached agreements with its Anacortes, Washington, and the Carson portion of its Los Angeles refineries on Monday and Sunday, respectively, according to representatives from Tesoro.

Two soccer fields located on Tesoro’s land in Martinez that were inaccessible during the strike will reopen after Easter, Deutsche said.

A local youth soccer league that uses the fields had made temporary arrangements to play elsewhere, she said. The union was trying to negotiate on issues related to worker fatigue, the use of contract laborers, healthcare and a “no retrogression” clause, which cements existing gains made by past negotiation efforts, Scott has said.

Scott did not immediately returns requests for comment on the new agreement.

-Bay City News

-Shutterstock image

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