ExxonMobil faces bid for arbitration

By PENNY BROWN ROBERTS pro berts@theadvocate.com Advocate staff writer

An international union representing local ExxonMobil workers is asking a federal judge to force the company into arbitration about pay raises and the closing of the union's office.

The Paper, Allied-Industrial Chemical and Energy Workers International Union Local No. 4-12 fIled a complaint Tuesday in U.S. District Court, claiming ExxonMobil failed to give more than 750 shift workers part of a $1 hourly raise as promised.

The complaint also alleges that the company in March abruptly ended a decades-old practice of providing a union office in the plant and allowing the organization's president and secretary/treasurer to work full-time on union business.

The move followed a decision in November by the previously independent union known as Baton Rouge Oil and Chemical Workers to affiliate with PACE, an international union with 300,000 members.

However, an ExxonMobil spokeswoman said the company is abiding by the terms of the contract.

"We do not even feel arbitration is in order because no written provision of the contract has been violated," ExxonMobil spokeswoman Bettsie Baker Miller said. "That's where we differ in opinion on exactly what is going on."

The union filed grievances with ExxonMobil on the two issues, which the company denied. PACE then demanded arbitration, which ExxonMobil refused.

ExxonMobil officials contend they denied the grievances and rejected the arbitration demand because they said they have honored the contract.

Company officials "said they want to have a better working relationship," PACE Local 4-12 Vice President Bob Landry said, "but everything they've done sends the exact opposite message.

At issue is a raise in a contract the union and the company signed in June 2002 after three months of negotiations.

Union officials say ExxonMobil protnised a $l-an-hour raise across the board, then changed the contract at signing time to raise the pay of some shift workers by just 88 cents to equalize pay between those who work an 8-hour day and those who work a 12-hour day.

Landry said the union signed the contract "under protest" to avoid having to work without one, reserving the right to file a grievance.

"When you sit in negotiations, what you say is what you get," Landry said. "We said, 'Does this mean everybody gets a dollar an hour?' And they said, 'Yes.' But when it came down to signing the contract, they changed the terms."

But Miller said both parties signed the contract with that provision, and that the company has abided by it.

"As far as we're concerned, we bargained it. We sat down at the table, calculated the rates and they signed it," Miller said. "We're paying what the contract says, so how can we be violating it?"

Also at issue is the company's decision to eliminate the union office in the plant, which has been in place since 1959. ExxonMobil also has stopped its practice of allowing top officers to work full-time on union business -- with their salaries
paid by the union -- and has eliminated other benefits.

Union employees now must request time offfrom company management for union-related business.

Miller said ExxonMobil decided to close the office because the union is no longer independent and therefore not in need of assistance with a "support structure."

"Because they were independent, they had no support structure whatsoever, mId there were things we allowed them," Miller said. "When they afflliated with PACE, we said, 'You're no longer independent, and we don't feel you should be getting these benefits.' It's not in the contract, so no contract issue has been violated."

But Landry said the fact that the practice existed for decades as a "gentleman's agreement" that ended after the union's affiliation with PACE is grounds for legal action.

"They've forced the president and secretary-treasurer to go back to their tools, and they're playing little games with the time-off issue," Landry said. "They didn't want us to affiliate with PACE."