Labor & Employment Law

Union Voice Can Help Prevent Future Gulf Oil Disasters

By Mike Hall

SIU Gulf Coast Vice President Dean Corgey.

Dean Corgey has spent nearly 40 years in the maritime industry, from 1973 when he shipped out of Houston after graduating from the Seafarers (SIU) training program, until today, when he serves as SIU vice president for the Gulf Coast region.

He has gained a deep and intimate knowledge of the Gulf Coast maritime industry, especially the offshore oil industry. In a recent column in the Houston Chronicle, Corgey looks at the BP/Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 workers and almost two months later continues to spew oil, poison wildlife and wetlands, ruin beaches and wreak economic havoc all along the Gulf Coast.

He says if the offshore oil industry–a major economic force in the Gulf and energy asset for the nation–is to thrive, it’s time to

change how business is conducted in the Gulf to ensure that this tragedy is never repeated. This raises the question: What’s wrong in the Gulf of Mexico?

We think the answer is simple. The offshore exploration, production and service industry in the Gulf of Mexico, to the best of our knowledge, is 100 percent nonunion and increasingly foreign. Past attempts to organize these workers have been met with bitter opposition–not from employees but from employers.

Corgey says such a situation has created volatile, hyper-competitive environment that has resulted in unsafe working conditions and unstable employment.

Lack of union representation has denied oilfield workers a voice in the workplace, which in turn has created an out-of-control industry with little oversight or accountability.

Pointing to his service on special federal commissions to investigate the Exxon Valdez disaster and to design port safety plans following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Corgey says:

In my experience, the most effective health, safety and environmental programs are a three-legged stool consisting of a committed employer, effective government regulation and meaningful safety provisions contained in a binding union contract subject to a grievance and arbitration procedure with teeth. We practice this model in the deep-sea, U.S.-flag fleet with measurable success… This model must be replicated to save our domestic offshore industry.

Click here to read his entire column. Also click here for to read a post by United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo W. Gerard and Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts looking at how corporate greed took precedence over the safety of workers in the BP and Massey Energy Upper Big branch coal mine disasters.

Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) this week condemned actions by local and federal officials targeting immigrant workers hired to clean up BP’s oil spill on Gulf Coast beaches and in marshlands.

Danny Postel, communications coordinator for IWJ, says:

As we scramble to contain the biggest environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, and send workers into harm’s way to do the dirty work (10 were recently hospitalized after reporting dizziness, nausea and difficulty breathing), why do the very people whose labors are so urgently needed and whose safety hangs in the balance find themselves under investigation over their immigration status?

According to reports, agents from local offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) visited two cleanup staging areas at the request at the request of St. Bernard (La.) Parrish officials. The workers were found to be properly documented.

During a visit to the Gulf Coast, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said the Labor Department has been in touch with ICE and “they’re working on that issue now.”

My purpose is to assist the workers with respect to safety and protection. We’re protecting all workers regardless of migration status because that’s the federal law. If there are complaints of people not being paid adequate wages or loss of overtime or wage theft or if they feel that they’re in a harmful situation where they may be exposed to contaminants or something that might cause them fear or a health risk, they should call our OSHA office.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on June 15, 2010 (boomark / email).