As more than 600 ExxonMobil employees enter their second week locked out of their jobs, the company has released more details about its offer.
According to an employee information bulletin sent out Friday by the company, the company and union met on Wednesday for the first time since the work stoppage began.
“At this meeting, the union emphasized that they would not present a new offer in this meeting,” the bulletin said. “The union spent the majority of the meeting asking clarifying questions regarding the union’s April 30 proposal, which had been previously rejected.”
The company’s offer includes a variety of provisions, including refinery-specific wage increases, a reclassification of certain employees, elimination of language that prioritizes seniority in transfers and the revision of layoff and hiring language.
More specifically, the company is offering a 1.5% wage increase in 2021 and a commitment to match National Oil Bargaining Pattern percentage wage increase for the remaining years of the contract - 2022 through 2026.
Blending and packaging plant employees, however, would receive no raises for the first three years and incremental raises in the final three, according to the bulletin.
The Enterprise has reached out to USW District 13 Representative Richard “Hoot” Landry for comment. Union representatives previously have said that the company’s proposals will compromise the seniority system and worker safety.
Plumbers Local Union 68 executive board member Jeremy Pavlich had a similar message for members of the Beaumont City Council at a recent meeting. He told them that workers aren’t looking for pay increases. Instead, he re-emphasized, they’re trying to hold on to their seniority.
“We do not want to cut any seniority,” he told them. “We do not want to cut any safety. These people put their families at risks, put their lives on the line to keep one of the most profitable companies going during a pandemic. Those people made their sacrifices.”
But the company’s offer includes the elimination of “senior bidding language,” which prioritizes employees who wish to transfer to vacancies across the plant based on seniority.
The company says this would bring the plant up to “standardized best practices” in place at sister refineries in Baytown and Baton Rouge, “where employees are afforded opportunity based on qualifications and business needs as opposed to bidding based on seniority exclusively.”
ExxonMobil also has proposed reclassifying certain operator posts to simply process operators, which it says would provide “additional flexibility when making training assignments to better ensure more people are qualified in their operating area.”
Among other stipulations included in this change, the company says it has “no plans” for the reduction of positions in the process department.
Other proposed changes include expanded paid parental time-off benefits from three days to one week, extended probationary period for all new hires and extending the lockout or strike notice period from 74 days to 120 days.
The company maintains that its bargaining priorities are first, the safety of the workforce; the reliability of operations and the profitability of the site.
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