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9 May, 2011
The United Steelworkers (USW) submitted shareholder resolutions demanding boards of directors at four US oil companies take safety seriously. The resolutions were aimed at general meetings of Marathon Oil (27 April), Valero Energy (28 April), Tesoro Corp. (4 May), and it will appear before ConocoPhillips shareholders this week, 11 May, in Houston.
The USW also filed a safety transparency resolution with Sunoco, but it was withdrawn when the Philadelphia-based company agreed to comply with the contents of the resolution. The resolutions call on the companies to prepare a report of the “steps the company has taken to reduce the risk of accidents” within 90 days of the shareholders’ meeting.
The resolution, meant to achieve greater safety at oil refineries and other company operations, calls on the board of directors of each company to disclose the board’s oversight on process safety management, staffing levels, and also the inspection and maintenance of refineries and other equipment. The American national labour center, AFL-CIO, and its asset fund assisted with the shareholder propositions.
Gary Beevers
USW Vice President Gary Beevers voiced the significance in taking safety to the board rooms: “If these companies had to tell their shareholders and the public how they were staffing their refineries, how much overtime people were working, and how long units were going without basic inspection and maintenance, we know they’d try harder to fix the problems.”
The USW cited two months of last year – April and May 2010 – as being particularly deadly and dangerous times that should have awaken the US oil and petrochemical industries to poor safety practices. There were 13 fires, 19 deaths, and 25 serious injuries in those two months, including a 2 April 2010 explosion at Tesoro’s 130,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Anacortes, Washington, that killed seven USW Local 12-591 activists.
Tesoro workplace leaders, including Mark Laurence from Anacortes, spoke on behalf of the safety resolution at the company’s 4 May AGM in San Antonio, Texas. Last year’s Tesora tragedy was caused by a heat exchanger that blew apart because of cracks in a welded area.
The Washington State Department of Labour & Industry determined that Tesoro had failed in its duty to correctly test equipment for cracks. The state agency imposed a fine of US$2.39 million, but Tesoro is currently appealing the fine.