Labor & Employment Law

5 Refinery Workers Killed, Industry Group Lauds Its Safety Record

By Mike Hall

After an explosion at a Tesoro refinery in Anacortes, Wash., killed five United Steelworkers (USW) members and severely injured two other workers, the petroleum industry claimed its safety record is exemplary. Says USW President Leo W. Gerard:

It’s incredible this industry brags about its safety record just after five people were killed in a refinery explosion.

After the April 2 explosion, officials of the American Petroleum Institute told reporters that the industry was not getting enough credit for its health and safety record, citing drops in injury and illnesses rates during the past several years.

Also, says the USW, National Petrochemical & Refiners Association officials bragged that the industry has a lower injury rate than the U.S. manufacturing sector as a whole.  Says Gerard:

The problem is the injury and illness rates the trade associations cite are misleading and do not give the full picture of health and safety within the refining sector. The recordable injury rates that [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] OSHA collects measure items like slips, falls, sprains and fractures, not poor safety practices that lead to incidents like explosions and fires. There’s a difference between a sprained ankle and an explosion that kills five people.

The USW members killed were Matthew C. Bowen, 31; Darrin J. Hoines, 43; Daniel J. Aldridge, 50;  Kathryn Powell, 29, and Donna Van Dreumel, 36. Two others are still hospitalized with severe burns. They are USW member Matt Gumbel, 34 and Lew Janz, 41, a supervisor and longtime USW member.

According to the USW, Tesoro has a history of serious health and safety violations. The Associated Press reports that Washington Department of Labor and Industries

Fined the company $85,700 last April for 17 serious safety and health violations, defined as those with potential to cause death or serious physical injury. The fine was lowered in a settlement with the company, which required Tesoro to correct hazards and hire a third-party consultant to do a safety audit.

Also, inspectors found 150 instances of deficiencies and said the company did not ensure safe work practices and failed to update safety information when changes were made to equipment.

USW Vice President Gary Beevers, who oversees the union’s oil sector says “it is obvious that this industry still has not learned from other refinery disasters and near-misses.”

They are more concerned with their image than taking appropriate action on safety…There have been too many accidents and near-miss incidents in the oil refining industry. In honor of our brothers and sisters who were killed and seriously injured at the Tesoro refinery we urge the industry to take steps to ensure an incident of this type never happens again.

For more on refinery safety, visit the USW’s Oil Bargaining Campaign website.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on April 06, 2010 (boomark / email).