Walz signs refinery safety bill at St. Paul Pipefitters hall

May 3, 2023 by

Gov. Walz signed the refinery safety bill into law May 2.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed one of labor’s top policy priorities into law Tuesday at the St. Paul Pipefitters’ training center, putting in place new training requirements for tradespeople working at oil refineries in the state.

Surrounded by union members, Walz said the refinery safety measure will help prevent catastrophic accidents like the Husky refinery explosion five years ago in Superior, Wis., and protect communities surrounding Minnesota’s two refineries in St. Paul Park and Rosemount.

“We will not cut corners when it comes to workplace safety in Minnesota,” Walz said on the floor of Steamfitters Pipefitters Local 455‘s apprenticeship training center. “We are adding safeguards and improving training standards, so that workers can return home safe.”

The new law applies to contractors brought in by refineries to perform construction, demolition, installation, maintenance and repair work, and to handle hazardous material. It phases in a minimum threshold of those tradespeople who must have registered apprenticeship training, beginning with 30% by Jan. 1, 2024, and reaching 60% by Jan. 1, 2026.

Refineries whose contracted workforce fails to meet the minimum threshold could incur fines from the Department of Labor and Industry.

David Ybarra, president of the Minnesota Pipe Trades Association, said it was fitting to hold the bill signing at an apprenticeship training center. Building Trades unions’ apprenticeship programs, he said, “represent the gold standard in workforce development,” with “best-in-class” safety training specific to each craft.

Pipe Trades Association President David Ybarra touted the safety training local registered apprenticeships offer.

“This historic bill will help ensure that those working in these inherently dangerous facilities are the best of the best,” Ybarra added.

Workers at the St. Paul Park refinery began sounding the alarm about safety in early 2021, when Marathon locked out members of Teamsters Local 120 for nearly five months, after they refused to accept language that would have allowed the refinery to outsource up to 50 jobs.

At the same time, Marathon began severing ties with local contractors that had regularly provided maintenance and other services at the facility. Building Trades unions warned that local laborers, pipefitters and other tradespeople familiar with the refinery had been replaced with subcontractors from across the country.

Inside the refinery, Teamsters like Dean Benson noticed the difference. During a committee hearing on the bill, he told senators he worked alongside subcontractors who didn’t know how to use critical safety equipment, including Minnesota fire hydrants.

“These guys don’t know what they don’t know, and that’s dangerous in a place like the St. Paul Park refinery,” Benson said.

Workers’ safety concerns gained urgency after a March 20 accident at the Marathon refinery, in which 20,000 gallons of hot asphalt leaked during maintenance repairs, with two workers sustaining severe injuries requiring hospitalization.

Sen. Judy Seeberger (D-Afton), whose district includes the Marathon refinery, said the new law “goes to show how boots-on-the-ground folks can affect legislation.”

“It ensures that the right person has the right training to do the job,” lead House author Rep. Dave Lislegard (D-Aurora) said. “It wasn’t union versus non-union, but it was the unions that drove the conversation to get the results.”

Sen. Judy Seeberger, whose district includes the St. Paul Park refinery, was a lead author of the bill.

Seeberger, the lead Senate author, credited her predecessor in office, current Washington County Commissioner Karla Bigham, with laying the political groundwork for the new law.

But it took a change in Senate leadership to get the bill to Walz’s desk. Two years ago, when Republicans controlled the chamber, Bigham patched together bipartisan support for the measure on the Senate floor, before GOP leaders abruptly withdrew their support as the session drew to a close.

“I’m sorry it took so long for us to get here,” Walz told union members during the signing ceremony. “The idea of worker safety becoming a political football is absolutely atrocious.”

Kera Peterson, president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, said that the issue was a talking point in unions’ member-to-member political campaign in 2022.

“Both of Minnesota’s refineries are in the east metro, and we knew this bill was important to workers and our communities,” she said. “The signed law is proof that the work union members put into helping elect a labor majority in the Senate had a real impact.”

“When I was campaigning for office, I got the message loud and clear that this was something urgently needed to ensure workers in the refinery and the communities around the refinery were as safe as possible,” Seeberger added. “While we cannot guarantee the prevention of accidents, we can ensure that we are doing everything we can to make sure the workers at these facilities have the best training available to them.”

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In Senate, new DFL majority puts refinery safety atop to-do list

February 1, 2023 by

Union tradespeople packed the first committee hearing on Senate File 10. (photo courtesy LIUNA MN)

Refinery safety is back on the agenda at the Minnesota Capitol.

Union tradespeople helped pack the Senate Labor Committee’s hearing Jan. 12, when members heard public testimony on a bill that would require registered apprenticeship training for workers performing certain jobs in the state’s two petroleum refineries.

“In my career it was easy to spot the difference between workers who were trained in registered apprenticeship programs and those who were not,” LIUNA member Ben Weideman told senators.

“They understand what their specific duties are, they know how to ask questions and they contribute to a safe and productive culture of quality work, day after day.”

Weideman, a former health and safety manager for a large contractor that specializes in hazardous facilities, told lawmakers that petroleum refineries warrant unique public scrutiny because the safety risks there are exponential.

“Refineries are not a normal construction site,” he said. “It’s potentially dangerous for the individual workers, their co-workers, the surrounding community and the environment. Any refinery moving away from contractors that require and promote registered apprenticeship is taking a step backward from the progress we’ve made in the workplace throughout my career.”

That’s exactly what workers say is happening at the refinery in St. Paul Park, where union members have accused Marathon Oil of replacing local, highly trained tradespeople with non-union workers from other states.

The dispute came to a head in early 2021, when Marathon locked out members of Teamsters Local 120 for nearly five months, after union members refused to accept language that would have allowed the refinery to outsource up to 50 jobs.

At the same time, Marathon began severing ties with local contractors that had regularly provided maintenance and other services at the facility. Building Trades unions erected banners outside the refinery, warning that local laborers, pipefitters and other tradespeople familiar with the refinery had been replaced with subcontractors from across the country.

Inside the refinery, Teamsters noticed the difference.

Dean Benson, a vacancy relief officer at the facility and chief steward for Local 120, told senators he worked alongside subcontractors who didn’t know how to use critical safety equipment like a self-contained breathing apparatus. He knew they were from out of state, Benson said, when he watched the subcontractors struggle to figure out how Minnesota fire hydrants work.

(photo courtesy Steamfitters Pipefitters Local 455)

“These guys don’t know what they don’t know, and that’s dangerous in a place like the St. Paul Park refinery,” Benson said.

The growing chorus of concerns from workers like Benson and residents of St. Paul Park and surrounding communities quickly reached lawmakers like Karla Bigham, who carried the apprenticeship requirement two years ago while serving in the Senate.

A companion measure passed the House, and Bigham’s Senate bill briefly made it into a larger package of legislation with bipartisan support. But in the 2021 session’s waning hours, Republican leaders abruptly withdrew their support, killing the measure.

With DFLers now in the Senate majority, it stands a good chance of passing, according to lead author Sen. Judy Seeberger, who has succeeded Bigham, now a Washington County commissioner, in Senate District 41, which includes St. Paul Park.

“When I was campaigning for office, I got the message loud and clear that this was something urgently needed to ensure workers in the refinery and the communities around the refinery were as safe as possible,” Seeberger said.

“Minnesota’s registered apprenticeship programs are the gold standard when it comes to training,” she added. “When we’re talking about oil refineries, which are such dangerous environments to work in, we should expect nothing less than the most experienced, skilled and safe workers in those facilities.”

Seeberger’s bill, Senate File 10, passed out of the Labor Committee Jan. 12, but representatives of Big Oil did their best to derail it. The American Petroleum Institute’s Lynn Granger warned Seeberger’s bill “is not about safety” but, rather, “the government inserting itself in the hiring practices of the private sector.”

Commissioner Bigham, who also testified at the hearing, wasn’t buying it. She noted that other states where Marathon operates refineries have apprenticeship requirements on the books.

“This legislation does not require refineries to hire union,” Bigham said. “There’s nothing that stops Marathon or any other refinery in the state from doing their own apprenticeship program.”

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Leadership changes, but Trades’ focus remains on building careers, communities

July 22, 2021 by

The Crow Wing County VFW color guard installs the colors at the start of the Building Trades convention.

A new president gaveled the 75th convention of the Minnesota State Building and Construction Trades Council to order at Madden’s on Gull Lake today, as delegates unanimously affirmed their Executive Board in electing Laborers Local 563 Business Manager Joe Fowler to lead the statewide organization.  

President Emeritus Harry Melander, who retired in June after 12 years leading the council, administered the oath of office to Fowler and other executive officers as one of the convention’s first orders of business. 

“I will give it my all to advocate the just cause of organized construction labor in the state of Minnesota,” Fowler said, thanking delegates for their support.  

While the leadership of the organization has changed – it’s the first convention for newly hired Executive Director Tom Dicklich, too – the Building Trades Council’s work remains focused on fostering family-sustaining, high-quality job opportunities for tradespeople across the state. 

In practice, Fowler said, that means recruiting new workers – particularly veterans and workers from underrepresented communities – into unions’ registered apprenticeship programs to keep up with the industry’s demand for skilled labor. It means organizing to end mistreatment of workers on non-union construction sites, where wage theft, employee misclassification and labor trafficking are too common. And it means opposing right-to-work laws and attacks on prevailing wage at the Capitol. 

Gov. Tim Walz greets delegates to the convention.

By most of those measures, Minnesota’s Building Trades unions have fared better than their counterparts in other Midwest states, and Fowler said the reason for that is unity. 

“Sticking together and showing solidarity is what sets us apart from other organizations that would like to see us and organized labor as a whole fail, and that will never happen,” he said. “If we do not have solidarity, we do not have a strong Building Trades, and in Minnesota that is just not an option.” 

The Trades have worked in recent years to attract bipartisan support for their agenda at the State Capitol, and that support was on display in the string of guest speakers who lined up to take the podium today. Mayors, state legislators, agency commissioners, members of Congress and Gov. Tim Walz all touted their work in support of union tradespeople. 

Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, a Republican whose district includes the Gull Lake area, told delegates his caucus, unlike Republicans in states like Wisconsin, won’t advance measures to undermine collective bargaining or attack prevailing wage. 

“Times are changing,” Gazelka said. “We’re the ones that are fighting for the mining jobs, whether it’s copper-nickel or taconite mining. We’re the ones standing up for the pipelines.” 

But Walz warned against politicians who frame a “false choice” when it comes to energy policy and mining. He said his administration is determined not to “cut corners,” but has moved projects like the Polymet mine through the permitting and review processes quickly. It is Senate Republicans’ move to force out his head of the state’s Pollution Control Agency, Walz said, that has slowed that process down. 

Joe Fowler, business manager of Laborers Local 563, is the new president of the Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council.

“They’re playing games with your jobs,” Walz said. “They’re playing games with a process that now works. This isn’t about me picking winners or losers, it’s about following the science, following the law and following the process.  

“We did all those things. And we’re a long ways down that process on the Polymet mine, but it’s pretty damn hard to go back to an agency when that commissioner is no longer there.” 

DFL lawmakers also called out Republicans for bailing on the Building Trades-backed refinery safety measure during the special session last month.  

The measure, which would have required skilled laborers at sensitive petroleum facilities complete a registered apprenticeship program, gained steam after Marathon replaced local, union contractors at its St. Paul Park refinery with workers from out-of-state, non-union contractors. It passed the DFL-controlled House but was stripped from the Senate jobs bill after more than a dozen Republicans who originally voted to advance the measure withdrew their support. 

Rep. Rob Ecklund, a DFLer from International Falls, said the vote revealed who is “standing with labor not just when it’s politically convenient, but all of the time.” 

A diplomatic Fowler sought to cool the political rhetoric, insisting the council, under his leadership, “will always be nonpartisan in the sense that we support those who support us and who understand labor is always on the side of the worker.” 

There were some issues on which everyone in the room could agree, including a renewed state investment in Helmets to Hardhats, which has successfully introduced thousands of military veterans to career opportunities in the union trades. Justin Ross, a former Marine who heads the statewide initiative, said 840 Minnesota veterans have enrolled in unions’ apprenticeship programs over the last three years after accessing the program.

President Emeritus Harry Melander (L) congratulates Secretary Treasurer Craig Olson after swearing in the officers.

“I know firsthand what it can be like returning from military service,” Ross said. “I spent over five years bouncing from job to job, trying college a couple times. It wasn’t until I found my way into an apprenticeship program with Sheet Metal Workers Local 10 that I really found a home.” 

Another point of universal agreement: appreciation for Melander’s leadership during the 12 years he served as president of the council. Walz presented the president emeritus with a plaque declaring today Harry Melander Day in Minnesota. 

In characteristically brief remarks, Melander assured delegates their organization is in good hands, and left them with a few words of wisdom. 

“Teach the trade; honor the craft,” he said. “Just remember that. Teach the trade to the young people, and honor the craft amongst ourselves. And thank you for the privilege of serving the last 12 years.” 

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St. Paul Park refinery picks fight with Building Trades unions, too

March 25, 2021 by

Pipefitters Local 455’s (L to R) Troy Heidrich, Dan Clark and Jacob Bear demonstrate outside the Marathon refinery in St. Paul Park.

Teamsters aren’t the only union members Marathon is looking to replace with nonunion, out-of-state workers at the St. Paul Park refinery.

They aren’t the only ones fighting back, either.

Earlier this month, several Building and Construction Trades unions began setting up banners around the refinery, publicly shaming Marathon for turning its back on Minnesota contractors and tradespeople – and for putting the safety of St. Paul Park and surrounding communities at risk.

Although some of the banners are within shouting distance of locked-out Teamsters’ picket lines, the two disputes are not connected. Both reflect a troubling disregard for community safety on Marathon’s part, however.

“Marathon has been going down this pathway for a long time,” Don Mullin, executive secretary of the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council, said. “They’ve been taking on efforts to be anti-organized labor because that’s the way they do it in other states.”

Ironworkers Local 512’s Ted DeSantell (L) and Nate O’Reilly
Laborers Local 563’s Sarah Monkey, Stephen Cruz and Jade Monkey, Sarah’s daughter
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 110’s Matt Walker, Dick Schmitt and Nick Rosenberg;

The dispute heated up this year after Marathon informed a union contractor there was no work forthcoming at the refinery, despite a scheduled maintenance turnaround beginning in late April. Turnarounds involve dangerous work, Mullin said, and can mean hundreds, even thousands, of jobs for tradespeople at a refinery like the one in St. Paul Park.

But rather than trust that work to highly skilled tradespeople who live and work in the area, Marathon is cutting costs by bringing in workers from across the country.

Not only does that undermine Minnesota’s labor standards, Building Trades unions say, it calls into question the safety of work being done at the refinery, located near homes and businesses in St. Paul Park and Newport.

Mullin accused Marathon of scraping the “bottom of the barrel” for tradespeople, bringing them in from Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky and elsewhere. He said unions are taking a stand because Minnesota deserves better, and he encouraged members of the public to do the same.

“It’s disgusting what Marathon is doing,” Mullin said. “We need to write Marathon or call them and tell them this is the wrong way to handle their business. They need to be a good community partner. Right now they’re not.”

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