Union, Marathon meeting as strike deadline looms for US refineries

Strikes at US refineries could begin as early as Sunday

The union rejected another Marathon bid late Saturday afternoon

The Marathon offer would provide a 13% salary increase over four years

HOUSTON — Negotiators from the United Steelworkers Union and Marathon Petroleum continued to meet Saturday, just hours before a deadline for possible strikes at several U.S. refineries and chemical plants, the union said.

Late Saturday afternoon, the union rejected an offer from Marathon, the chief negotiator for 26 U.S. refiners and chemical companies, including Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Valero Energy. The offer would provide a 13% increase in wages over the four-year contract, according to people familiar with the talks.

“MPC continues to meet with USW representatives,” Marathon spokesman Jamal Kheiry said. “We are committed to negotiating in good faith and working to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement.”

A USW spokesman said the union had no immediate comment on the negotiations.

Salary increases in Marathon’s offer would be 3% in each of the first two years of the deal and 3.5% in each of the final two years.

Sources said the key points of the talks were increases in the cost of living for the 30,000 oil industry workers represented by the USW, health care costs and standards for the use of artificial intelligence in facilities.

USW is also pushing for stricter safety standards, but sources said that is not the starting point for the Marathon.

“As a Marathon company, he thinks our industry is overpaid,” said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly. “They don’t really bring up the economy. And to be honest, they don’t touch on anything else in our proposal other than artificial intelligence. And they don’t cover it well.”

The current four-year contract ends at 12:01am on Sunday, but that doesn’t mean the strike will automatically start at that time.

In past negotiations, the union had allowed a 24-hour extension of the contract to reach an agreement that had expired.

Workers will only quit their jobs in factories where the union allows strikes.

At the beginning of the last nationwide strike in 2015, USW appealed to workers at 11 refineries in the United States that employ 5,200 USW members. Refineries continued to operate with temporary replacement workers.

Negotiations between USW and Marathon are for a national model agreement that would set wages for hourly unionized workers, health care costs, national agreements on safety and other issues.

In-refinery operators earn about $50 per hour after completing their probationary period.

The national agreement is combined with agreements on site-specific issues to create a contract for each facility.

Workers and the company resolved local issues Friday at the 631,000-barrel-per-day Galveston Bay Refinery, Marathon’s largest refinery.

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