(SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA) - Two United Steelworkers (SW) Locals and the BlueGreen Alliance scored a win in California when the State’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board rejected Oil Refiners’ looser safety plans. 

The Board’s unanimous vote overturned an agreement between the Refiners’ lobby, the Western States Petroleum Association, and State Officials to bar Union Reps or other Workers from participating in comprehensive safety reviews at Californian refineries - and to weaken two other safety requirements.

USW Locals 5 and 675 and the BlueGreen Alliance, a Coalition of Unions and Environmental Groups, fought hard and successfully to have the Board reverse the State’s pro-corporate decision.

The Union’s Oil Sector represents tens of thousands of U.S. Refinery Workers.

The reviews, to implement Process Safety Management standards, mandate inspections of an entire Refinery Complex - pipes, tanks, ladders, superstructure, everything - top to bottom.

The PSM Standards also require Refinery Owners to fix any problems. 

The Board’s decision means the tougher Safety Standards will stay in place and the Union and/or Worker Reps will still accompany State Safety Inspectors and make PSM recommendations.

And that in turn will help protect Workers and surrounding communities from refinery explosions, fires and accompanying dangers. 

Process safety management, or lack of it, has long bedeviled the Petroleum Industry nationally.

With few PSM inspections, refinery explosions occurred, killing Workers and losing dangerous chemicals and gases into surrounding communities.

At one point, the Industry averaged an explosion a week, nationally - though not all were fatal.

A 2012 refinery explosion and fire at the Chevron plant in Richmond, California injured 19 workers and forced the evacuation of 15,000 people for medical treatment after they inhaled hazardous smoke and gases.

That led to California’s PSM Standards in 2017, which the Refiners tried to weaken. 

To Continue Reading This Labor News Report, Go To: Steelworkers, Bluegreen Alliance beat oil giant ‘safety’ plans – People's World