HOUSTON (Reuters) – An administrative law judge at the U.S. National Labor Relations Board has ruled ExxonMobil (NYSE:)’s 10-month lockout of about 600 union workers at a Texas oil refinery during a contract dispute was legal.
The judge sided with Exxon in his decision on November 21, ruling that the 2021 and 2022 lockout was intended to pressure United Steelworkers union workers to reach a deal, not to cut the union out of the 369,024 barrels per day (bpd) in Beaumont, Texas. , refinery complex.
The USW had faced a decertification campaign and filed an unfair labor practice complaint during the lockout, alleging an improper attempt to break the plant’s union.
The union had sought millions of dollars in lost wages and benefits for workers locked out of the plant between May 2021 and March 2022.
“There is little or no evidence that the company locked out the unit’s employees to unlawfully pressure them to decertify the union,” NLRB Judge Jeffrey Wedekind said in an opinion accompanying the decision.
An Exxon spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Meekie Moseley, president of USW Local 13-243, which represents the workers, said the union is considering its options following the judge’s ruling. The USW may appeal the decision to the NLRB.
“We believe the decision does not reflect the facts of the case,” Moseley said in a statement.
Wedekind’s decision came 18 months after hearings in the case began. Those hearings considered whether internal Exxon documents on the negotiating strategy and a post-contract review could be considered in this case.
But Wedekind excluded the documents, which showed that Exxon executives had considered a lockout early on and debated what it would take for union members to vote to decertify or formally expel the union.
In documents seen by Reuters, Exxon executives had early considered using a lockout and later believed that changes in workforce composition would benefit the company’s strategy in future talks come.
A fifth of the employees initially locked out on May 1, 2021 had left the company before the contract settlement in March 2022. The replacements “previously worked as contractors for the duration of the lockout – affecting both site performance and working conditions benefits the long term. strategy,” wrote plant manager Jose Diaz, according to the documents posted on an internal website and leaked to the USW, according to witness statements.
Another document had raised the prospect of pushing workers to oust the union during the next round of negotiations in 2027 by splitting the contract between the complex’s refinery and the lubricating oil plant.
“Split the contract in 2027, and the refinery will eventually decertify,” former plant manager Jonathan Parsons (NYSE:) said, according to the documents.
