You asked we answer-

How did we decide on USW as our representative union?  Were other unions considered?

Can we delay the union vote for 6 months or a year and see if the company does better?

How do we speak to actual union reps?

So we’ve heard there are various forms of these questions floating around and while we have previously addressed them elsewhere we might as well take another swing at them here in as brief of answers as possible. 

We selected USW over other unions for several reasons-  

1) They represent more O&G workers than any other union in N. America- which means they have a lot of experience in dealing with O&G contracts. Even though the name United Steel Workers doesn’t point to a “oil union”, USW is the parent organization over the old OCAW, which was the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, that merged with the Paper Workers and became PACE in 1999, which then merged with United Steel in 2005.  So the actual name of “USW” is United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Employees Int’l Union… but that’s a hell of a mouthful so USW is used for short. Read more about it here if you’d like. But to put bluntly, USW is the oil union.

2) As you are all aware they represent the WOA, and this made them an obvious choice for us as they already have experience negotiating contracts and dealing with union issues in a field that is as close to identical to ours and two fields can be. 

3) They also represent other ConocoPhillips (or now some Phillip66) assets in Canada and the lower 48- Montney and Lake Charles for example.  

So a combination of USW being the premiere O&G union, representing a field geographically identical to ours and USW representing other COP (or former COP) facilities makes them a natural fit, we didn't find any other union that was even close in terms of experince.

Can we delay the union vote for 6 months or a year and see if the company does better?

The short answer is no.  There are several parts to this but the 3 most important things to remember are 1) Legal framework of the NLRA, 2) Voting numbers and 3)Former Promises so lets break that down:

1.  Paperwork has been submitted to the feds and a vote date has been set-  we can’t ask for the vote to be postponed and the company can’t “get their act together and treat us right”- and I mean “can’t” in a legal manner.  This all goes back to the NLRA, part of which is that “status quo” thing we talked about before.  The company is legally obligated to keep working conditions, wages, bonus structures, raise “pathways” etc.  the same in between now and the CBA. That’s so they can’t bribe us to not join the union or threaten us with cut wages/loss of bonus extra- so even if we magically acquired a new VP that we trusted with every ounce of our being, he wouldn’t be allowed to “shape up and treat us right” with better pay or whatever before we vote, even if the vote were to be delayed.  

2. Voting numbers-  the people that were here on Nov 30 are the people that can vote-  we’ve already lost a few of them (they went back to Hilcorp) and we’re going to lose more.  Every one we lose is a lost vote for us, time works in the company’s favor and we’re done doing favors for the company. 

3. Former Promises-  So let us pretend for a minute that issues #1 and #2 weren’t a problem… what promise could the company possibly make that you would believe?  What conditions would you demand for them to keep that promise?  What would happen when that boss that made you that promise gets moved to Canada and we Ed the Destroy back or someone even worse? The feeling for most of us is there are zero promises the company could make that we would believe, they already made promises and broke them, they fired most of the people that tried to hold them accountable.  The only “promise” they will keep is one they are legally obligated to keep, and that’s what a Collective Bargaining Agreement is, and we need a union to have that.

So people still want to speak to a union rep….  OK.  We’ll set up a zoom meeting, but you’re going to be disappointed-  Dustin Every (the USW Local President) doesn’t wear a suit, he wears FRC coveralls but he’ll answer every question you throw at him.  We’ve already offered numerous times to put people in touch but then no one reaches out.  We’ll get someone for the USW staff on the call also.

Also, we’ve heard some people aren’t getting responses from info@unionontheNorthSlope.org-  we don’t know what to tell you on this,  we’ve literally responded to every question asked either by blog post or by email-  (we can’t respond by email if you don’t leave an email address).  We know there have been some issues with our emails from the site getting filtered by Yahoo and Outlook/Hotmail as spam, double check your spam folder.  Please, please resubmit your questions if they haven’t been answered, we will make every effort to answer every question we get.  We’re trying very very hard to be as open and as upfront with all of this as we can (given the situation there are limitations… cough cough conoco firing people), but please hit us up again.