:: rawblogXport ::

:: Friday, April 01, 2005 ::

Contractors killed in BP blast not part of union "family" By MARK LISHERON, Oxford Press, OH
Many of the contract workers themselves walked away from requests for interviews. One young worker ordering a beer at the Texas Tavern near the BP plant and wearing the dingy tan jumpsuit that identifies a contract worker, said he expected that contract workers have already been blamed by union members for an explosion that so far has no identifiable cause.

If not direct blame, there remains a deep suspicion of the contract work force at oil refineries, Pete Aguilar says. Aguilar ought to know. A union pipefitter for Amoco and, later, BP when the companies merged, Aguilar retired and then returned two years ago as a contract worker, first for Altair Strickland and currently for Industrial Air Tool.

'I knew they were going to have a fire there sooner or later,' Aguilar says. 'They do the turnarounds too fast, with too many people nowadays. A lot of the guys they hire aren't from around here. When I was there we used to have certain ways of doing the work.'

posted 2:45 AM :: reference link :: 0 comments ::

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