Wash. Refinery Workers Protest for Better Working and Safety Conditions

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http://www.alternet.org/labor/wash-refinery-workers-protest-better-working-and-safety-conditions

There’s a lot of marveling these days about the tumbling price of gasoline, a boon to consumers. Average regular gas prices last week stood at $2.17 a gallon, a drop of 34% from a year ago, the media reported.

In Anacortes, Washington, about 70 miles north of Seattle, people attach a different price to gasoline: 13 human lives. That’s the number of workers killed in accidents at Anacortes’ two refineries in recent years.

In 1998, superheated oil exploded at the Anacortes coking unit, burning six workers to death. The operator was found negligent by state investigators. And in 2010, a heat exchanger ruptured at the Anacortes Tesoro refinery, spewing 500-degree naphtha. The ensuing fireball explosion killed five men and two women. Four years later, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board determined that the accident “could have been prevented,” blaming it on poor construction materials, ineffective safeguards and a management culture of complacency. Other refineries around the country share similar tales of fatal disaster.

The safety problems that led to these tragedies are the main reason that 190 Anacortes refinery workers are walking picket lines today, on strike along with 5,000 other oil processing workers at 10 other refineries around the nation. It’s the workers’ first nationwide strike in 35 years, instigated by a corporate culture that, in the words of USW International vice president Tom Conway, continues “to value production and profit over health and safety, workers and the community.”

[Mopar151]

1. I briefly worked for a major industrial gas company

They say they are all about safety - but it's largely an exercise in blameshifting. The worst part is the way they rationalise laying of the most experienced workers, while keeping the dunderheads.