To: All Whiting Employees
The purpose of this Employee Information Bulletin (EIB) is to provide answers to three frequently asked questions about the Company’s proposed 150-day notice before a potential strike / lockout, the Company’s proposed 6-year contact duration, and the Company’s proposal to modify how overtime drafting occurs at the Refinery.
Question: Why is the Company seeking 150-day notice before the Union can strike and / or the Company can lock-out employees.
Answer: Extending the notice period from 24 hours to 150 days would provide stability and predictability for everyone at the Refinery.
For our hourly employees, the 150-day strike and lock-out notice provides additional opportunity to reach a deal before anyone experiences the monetary impact of a work stoppage. For our salaried employees supporting the Business Continuity Plan (BCP), an extended industrial peace clause of 150 days would provide significant job stability, security, and predictability during the negotiation process.
For Whiting, the establishment of this notice period would allow the Company to defer some BCP preparations, which could help us to better allocate resources to things that drive business value.
It’s important to note that every other union agreement within US Refining, Terminals & Pipelines has an extended industrial peace clause of 80+ days, including USW 7-1 Whiting Clean Energy, USW 7-1 Pipelines and the USW 7-1 Plant Guards.
Question: Why is the Company seeking a 6-year contract term?
Answer: The Whiting Refinery has proposed a contract term of 6 years to allow sufficient time to implement the Company’s proposed Operations, Maintenance and Lab job classifications, qualification/competency-based job progressions, time to upskill current employees, and time to stand-up the supporting processes.
An extended contract length would allow the time needed to fully assess, train, and upskill employees as well as reduce potential disruptions and allow the business and its employees to fully realize the benefits of these changes that will help deliver a safer, more efficient refinery.
We firmly believe this extended stability is important for our employees and the business. An extended term would give our employees certainty in wage rates, benefits and working conditions over a longer period and would also reduce disruptions and help ensure industrial stability over the next six years. It would also create distance from broader industry negotiations, which serve as a distraction for the Refinery.
Question: Why is the Company proposing to change the drafting / overtime distribution system?
Answer: Under the current drafting system, the most junior, qualified employee, is forced to accept mandatory overtime. The current approach creates disparities where more junior employees are consistently drafted, sometimes on back-to-back shifts.
The Company’s proposed round robin system, by contrast, rotates overtime opportunities sequentially amongst eligible employees starting with the most junior employee working its way up the seniority list. Under the Company’s proposal, the round robin structure would re-set each pay period.
This ensures that: