Motiva Workers Unite
CONVENT, La. -- Workers at a Motiva Enterprises LLC 225,000-barrel-per-day Convent, La., oil refinery voted to unionize over the weekend. By a vote of 165-91, the workers approved joining the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy (PACE) International Union.
Motiva Enterprises is a 50-50 joint venture between Royal Dutch/Shell Group's Shell Oil Co. and Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco.
Located 30 miles south of Baton Rouge, the Convent refinery was the last remaining U.S. refinery in the Shell Oil system to be unionized. The next step will be for the company and the union to negotiate a contract.
"The union will be giving a notice to the company, probably sometime this week" to begin contract talks, PACE spokeswoman Lynne Baker told Reuters.
PACE will represent 284 operations, instrument and electrical, and laboratory workers at the Convent refinery, the union said in a statement. The union already represents 320,000 employees in the oil, chemical, paper and pulp, pharmaceutical, atomic, kaolin, auto parts and corn milling industries.
Motiva Enterprises is a 50-50 joint venture between Royal Dutch/Shell Group's Shell Oil Co. and Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco.
Located 30 miles south of Baton Rouge, the Convent refinery was the last remaining U.S. refinery in the Shell Oil system to be unionized. The next step will be for the company and the union to negotiate a contract.
"The union will be giving a notice to the company, probably sometime this week" to begin contract talks, PACE spokeswoman Lynne Baker told Reuters.
PACE will represent 284 operations, instrument and electrical, and laboratory workers at the Convent refinery, the union said in a statement. The union already represents 320,000 employees in the oil, chemical, paper and pulp, pharmaceutical, atomic, kaolin, auto parts and corn milling industries.