Mobil Plant Crew Sleeps on the Job, Ex-Employee Says

A former Mobil refinery worker filed a complaint with federal officials Wednesday, alleging that employees at the Torrance refinery frequently sleep on the job, endangering their own safety as well as that of others, and that they are rarely disciplined for the practice.

“It is a serious problem which is having a great impact on the quality of the operation,” said Bruce Lohmann, 34, of Long Beach.

“There is a potential for . . . a disaster because of the sleeping problem,” he said.

But Mobil refinery manager Wyman Robb said that sleeping on the job rarely occurs at the refinery. It violates policy, he said, and when discovered, is punished severely.

Charges Denied

“The situation that he described would not be tolerated in a refinery,” Robb said.

Robb characterized Lohmann as a disgruntled ex-employee who did not get along with fellow employees and who left after refinery management was not willing to promote him to a supervisory position.

Lohmann disagreed.

“I got along with my co-workers as well as anyone there,” he said.

He said he left after working as an assistant operations worker at Mobil from Jan. 9 to May 18 because of his concerns for safety at the refinery--and after receiving a job offer from a local government agency that he asked not be named. Before coming to Mobil, Lohmann said, he worked for about five years at the Chevron refinery in El Segundo.

In addition to filing a complaint with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, he talked with a Cal-OSHA official who said the agency would investigate his allegations, Lohmann said. He said he also will meet with Torrance Fire Department officials Monday to brief them about what he experienced at Mobil.

Capt. Kenneth Hall, the department’s chief fire investigator, said, “If that type of thing is occurring, we would encourage people to come forward, even anonymously. . . . We would definitely encourage him to come and talk.”

In an interview, Lohmann said that after he arrived at Mobil, he was concerned to find what he called a less vigilant atmosphere about safety than the one at Chevron. He said he had been a member of a Chevron plant safety committee.

“Frankly, when I initially got there (at Mobil), I enjoyed the easygoing atmosphere,” he said.

“I saw problems from the start, but it was quite easygoing and relaxed and kick-back, compared to Chevron. Mobil being a very large company, I thought I would have the same standard. I got increasingly concerned, and then scared.”

He said he saw a number of problems soon after being hired. A pump that was scheduled for repair was not properly fenced off, he said, although it was leaking toxic, explosive fumes. He also said an improper procedure was used to fix a leak in a furnace tube, creating the potential for an explosive fire.

After routine training for new employees, he was assigned to the platinum treating reformer, a unit that boosts the octane of unleaded gasoline.

“I worked day shift and night shift. I saw workers sleeping on each and every shift that I worked,” he said. “It was a daily occurrence.”

In his complaint, Lohmann said the sleeping took place in some of the refinery’s smaller control rooms where shift supervisors are not stationed, including the control rooms of the platinum treating reformer, the fluid catalytic cracking unit and the crude distillation unit.

In the control room of the unit where he worked, he said in the interview, he saw sleeping workers “typically, slouched back. Some people would be leaning forward on the desk with their hands in front of them, with their heads on their arms.”

In other control rooms where the lighting was stronger, he said, he saw operators with coats over their heads to block out the lights.

Everyone Asleep

He said he sometimes came to his control room and found everyone asleep.

“I worked on different shifts there. I saw every head operator sleeping. . . . I was lectured to by senior operators about not waking them, to be careful when I come in and out of the control room not to make too much noise. . . .

“The unit would be unattended. These units are designed to run automatically, which is why people can sleep,” he said.

“You don’t have to monitor every second, and the materials will still flow through the pipes; they will still be heated, and the chemical reactions will occur. The problem is when a (process) controller fails, or a pump seal fails, or something changes.”

In the spring, Lohmann said, supervisors clamped down briefly on sleeping and began showing up unannounced. He said some of the operators evaded the crackdown by going outside and sleeping in a tent that had been set up for a repair job.

Lohmann said he himself slept on the job several times.

“I have a hard time sleeping at work,” he said. “I would have slept more if I had been able to get to sleep.”

Lohmann declined to provide the names of the individuals he saw sleeping.

He attributed much of the alleged sleeping on the job to a schedule in which refinery employees work 12-hour shifts of 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., for example, for several days, then have several days off, and come back to work 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. This creates a sort of super jet lag, in which employees switch day for night several times during the 14-day schedule, he said.

“The desire to sleep can be very powerful,” he said. “Many workers told me they don’t like the schedule, and they find the only way open to them: They find a place to sleep.”

Mobil officials dispute every point in Lohmann’s allegations.

Robb denied that sleeping is a significant problem. He added that five employees out of 800 had been disciplined in the last two years for sleeping, with punishments ranging from a 10-day suspension to a written reprimand.

Problem Called Rare

Phil Wright, a Mobil shift supervisor who Lohmann said was known as a hard-liner against sleeping, also said that the problem was rare.

“I don’t come across someone sleeping very often. They know how I feel, and they know I will take action, so I don’t come by it very often,” he said.

Robb said the shift schedule is supported by the employees, who prefer long weekends and the reduced commuting time that it provides.

But support of a general nature for some of Lohmann’s contentions emerged last month in the largest U.S. study of sleeping on the job among shift workers.

The survey of 7,400 refinery, chemical plant, power plant and factory shift workers, by three California researchers, found that sleepiness is a widespread problem that can cause accidents and poor performance. Among shift workers at refineries and chemical plants, 60% reported sleeping regularly during night shifts.

At the Torrance City Council meeting Tuesday, Councilman Dan Walker brought up Lohmann’s allegations, which first appeared in the Daily Breeze. “It sounds funny until you find that it’s really not,” he said.

Walker, who is sponsoring a ballot initiative to substantially reduce the use of acutely hazardous hydrofluoric acid at the refinery, said Lohmann’s allegations heightened his concerns about safety at the plant.