What It Will Take to Defeat Phillips 66

Phillips 66 has made a killing off the Iran war. Now, it is waging war to kill off the union at its Bayway Refinery in Linden, New Jersey. The lockout of Teamsters Local 877 members is an aggressive act of retaliation for their refusal to bow to the refining giant’s concessionary demands: inadequate wages, elimination of “fatigue days,” weaker safety standards and a six-year probationary period.

Workers already endure grueling schedules, including 13-day stretches of 12-hour shifts. Now, the bosses want to bulldoze the union to prevent organized resistance to their decrees. This frontal assault cannot go unanswered. As if the lockout weren’t enough, the company has also stripped union members of their healthcare. While Bayway Teamsters are manning the picket lines, union leadership has failed to match management’s brass-knuckle tactics.

Local 877 officials say they just want to get back to the table. But the union can’t make up at the table for what it lacks on the ground. Unless fuel stops moving, P66 has little incentive to budge. The prolonged, demoralizing lockouts of USW refinery workers in California and Indiana show what’s at stake. Without putting pressure on operations, the union will be sunk. Although IBT leaders pull back from applying that pressure and take steps to isolate Local 877, there is plenty that can be done to bolster the picket lines, stop scabs and cut off the flow of profits.

Working people have no shortage of reasons to help build mass pickets. P66 is a war profiteer grown fat on everyone else’s misery at the gas pump. Reinforcing Local 877’s picket lines would make for a far stronger protest against Trump’s “forever war” than voting Democratic (or Republican) in the midterms.

Safety is another powerful motivator. Skeleton crews of scabs have turned the refinery into a ticking time bomb. Linden’s Democratic mayor demanded “safety assurances” from P66. But the company has already assured us of its utter disregard for safety by locking out union fire brigades, spill teams and emergency workers. If Local 877 is beaten into submission, it’s only a matter of time before the hammer comes down on the next union, especially amid today’s economic slowdown and growing uncertainty.

Appeals to the bosses to end the lockout will accomplish less than whistling in the wind. They need to be forced to relent. Local 877 has plenty of potential union allies, and appeals should be directed to them: join the picket lines with an eye toward shutting down the refinery. Start with the union electricians, carpenters and operating engineers who have been instructed to cross the lines and report to work inside the refinery. That’s a gift to the bosses, who will return the favor by digging their boot into the other unions once Local 877 is flattened.

Products move out of the refinery by truck, rail, barge and pipeline, and most of the workers transporting them are union members. They include BLET locomotive engineers, who are affiliated with the Teamsters, and ILA-affiliated tugboat crews. Teamster drivers have a contractual right to honor picket lines—and should be encouraged to exercise it. Teamster-represented mechanics at United Airlines, the major carrier at nearby Newark airport, rejected a lousy contract offer just last month. By turning out en masse at Local 877’s picket lines, they would send a strong message, including to their own employer.

Other Teamsters, local firefighters and port and airport workers are all within striking distance of the refinery. Some unions have already voiced solidarity; the task now is to mobilize their members on the picket lines. Mass pickets would deter scabs from crossing and make it more difficult for cops to target individual picketers. This will be an uphill battle. But the company has fired the first volley, and the union will go down if it doesn’t return fire. We must organize accordingly: no scabs in, no product out!