Rodeo Refinery Unit Chair
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Negotiations Update
January 18th 2009
As your Unit and Negotiating Committee Chair, I’d like to share some thoughts about the 2009 negotiations. It hasn’t been
since the 1997 negotiations with Tosco since I’ve seen such arrogance on the dark side of the table. They tell us that the only
proposals they’ll even consider will be proposals that have significant value to the company. Granted the economy sucks right
now, but we all know that the oil industry is still making money, and lots of it. We aren’t dealing with an automobile industry
that is receiving government bailout money, we’re dealing with an industry that could, and maybe should, pay the bailout
themselves.
Significant value to the company? What are we? We are the value to the company! We are the ones who make it possible for
ConocoPhillips and Jim Mulva to be as successful as they are. We turn the valves, we maintain the equipment, we light the
heaters, and we monitor the processes that make this company as successful as they are. It’s certainly not the Human
Resources Department, who we deal with during negotiations, it’s all of us. The company is spending upwards to 800 million
dollars for the current upgrade projects going at full tilt right now. Do you think the Mulva’s, the Chiang’s, the Ziemba’s, or the
Swenson’s want these projects to be interrupted or to sit idle once they’re completed? Hell NO! They want them up and
running and making money.
So the message I’d like all of you to send to company is, “This is our time!” and say it with an attitude. It’s all of you, the
mechanics, the operators, and lab, warehouse and accounting folks, at those rallies that send the loudest message at the
table.
Keep the heat on the company. Let them know, that we don’t want to go on strike, but we will!
In Solidarity,
Howard Muto - Unit and Negotiating Committee Chair
January 18th 2009
As your Unit and Negotiating Committee Chair, I’d like to share some thoughts about the 2009 negotiations. It hasn’t been
since the 1997 negotiations with Tosco since I’ve seen such arrogance on the dark side of the table. They tell us that the only
proposals they’ll even consider will be proposals that have significant value to the company. Granted the economy sucks right
now, but we all know that the oil industry is still making money, and lots of it. We aren’t dealing with an automobile industry
that is receiving government bailout money, we’re dealing with an industry that could, and maybe should, pay the bailout
themselves.
Significant value to the company? What are we? We are the value to the company! We are the ones who make it possible for
ConocoPhillips and Jim Mulva to be as successful as they are. We turn the valves, we maintain the equipment, we light the
heaters, and we monitor the processes that make this company as successful as they are. It’s certainly not the Human
Resources Department, who we deal with during negotiations, it’s all of us. The company is spending upwards to 800 million
dollars for the current upgrade projects going at full tilt right now. Do you think the Mulva’s, the Chiang’s, the Ziemba’s, or the
Swenson’s want these projects to be interrupted or to sit idle once they’re completed? Hell NO! They want them up and
running and making money.
So the message I’d like all of you to send to company is, “This is our time!” and say it with an attitude. It’s all of you, the
mechanics, the operators, and lab, warehouse and accounting folks, at those rallies that send the loudest message at the
table.
Keep the heat on the company. Let them know, that we don’t want to go on strike, but we will!
In Solidarity,
Howard Muto - Unit and Negotiating Committee Chair
Howard Muto