Refinery Employees Accept Mobil Offer, End 13-Week Strike

About 450 striking union members at the Mobil refinery in Torrance and a smaller facility in Vernon voted to accept a company offer made before the job action began and returned to work Wednesday, a Mobil spokesman said.

The vote Tuesday ended a 13-week walkout that cost union members about $3.5 million in lost wages but did not succeed in reducing refinery operations, according to Tom Gregory, manager of safety and training at the Torrance plant.

“We are very pleased to have everybody back to work,” Gregory said.

He added that Mobil used management personnel to keep the refinery operating at normal levels.

Lack of Enthusiasm

Bill McGoveran, international representative of Local 1-547 of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, was less than enthusiastic when asked if there had been a settlement.

“Well, you could call it that,” he said.

He added that union officials had not recommended that members approve the company proposal. “The negotiating committee did not agree with the offer,” he said.

But members, voting at a union hall in Lawndale, approved it by a wide margin anyway, he said.

The main issue in the strike was a dispute over whether a newly created group of employees who are supervising computers would be classified as management, and therefore not part of the bargaining unit represented by the union.

Workers Replaced

Computers and their supervisors are replacing instrument boards and “board men,” who monitor and adjust the refining process.

“We have now agreed in principle that those jobs can be filled by management,” McGoveran said.

“In return for that, we gained five years of job security. No one in the plant will be reduced (in pay) to lower than (what) they held Jan. 15, 1988.

“They will be guaranteed that rate of pay for at least five years and increases will apply to that also. Our position and understanding is that everybody is protected as to their rate of pay and that protects them in their jobs.”

Gregory said Mobil had offered the job security provision in its final offer before the union struck Feb. 3.

Members, who now average $14.61 an hour in a 41-hour work week, will also receive the wage terms covered by a national oil agreement negotiated by the union with the major oil companies.

Under those terms, McGoveran said, the employees will receive a $900 signing bonus, a 30-cent-an-hour raise, effective Wednesday, and a 3% raise, effective Feb. 1, 1989.