How These Oil Workers Claimed Their Power

Bryan Goode and his coworkers perform demanding, hazardous jobs producing oil in one of the most unforgiving places on earth.

They work on Alaska’s North Slope, above the Arctic Circle, logging 12- to 18-hour shifts, often in whiteout conditions, with wind chills plunging to 100 degrees below zero—all the while keeping a sharp lookout for the bears prowling the bleak and barren landscape.

These are tough people. So they weren’t going to just shut up and take it when ConocoPhillips began cutting wages, slashing benefits, and eliminating jobs about a year and a half ago.

Instead, they mounted a tenacious union drive that united 267 workers across a handful of remote sites, culminating in a landslide vote in February to join the United Steelworkers (USW).

Their victory in spite of daunting challenges shows all of us how to fight back. As working people, we wield remarkable power, the power to band together and seize control of our own futures.

Goode and his colleagues are among a growing number of Americans forging this strength right now in the face of skyrocketing economic inequality and out-of-control corporate greed that continue to push basic dreams, like home ownership and retirement security, further out of reach.

Nearly half a million workers joined unions in the past year alone to leverage the higher wages, better benefits, and other advantages that collective action delivers. Because of gains like these, more workers benefit from union contracts today than at any time in the past 16 years, according to the AFL-CIO.

Besides the workers at ConocoPhillips, our union in recent months welcomed new members from 3M in Springfield, Missouri; Canpack in Muncie, Indiana; Kraton in Belpre, Ohio; JSW Steel in Mingo Junction, Ohio; and Dow in Hayward, California, among others.

While working in a variety of industries, these workers all perform highly skilled, dangerous work essential to the nation’s economy. All earned respect from their employers, a voice on the job, and a fair share of the wealth their labor creates.

And faced with unfair treatment, all decided to stand together and join the USW to even the scales.

“We’d had enough,” recalled Goode, who works at the Alpine oil field, a dot on the map, accessible mainly by bush plane and ice road. “We needed some means of protection. We wanted more of a voice.”

It wasn’t just that ConocoPhillips arbitrarily clawed back pay and benefits that he and the others earned with great sacrifice—leaving their families and flying into frigid campsites and allowing themselves to be marooned for weeks at a stretch while generating the oil that’s piped and shipped to West Coast refineries.

What infuriated Goode even more was seeing the company summarily lay off dozens of skilled colleagues—some of the best in the industry, he stressed—who shared the adversity and watched his back.

The job cuts foisted more work on those who remained, putting them at even greater risk, in a place where heavy snow and fierce winds sometimes make it impossible for workers to see the hoods of their vehicles.

While Goode remained proud of his work, which powers the nation’s economy, he resented the growing exploitation of workers and an influx of clueless middle managers who never worked the oil fields or walked in the workers’ boots.

“Without us, there is no ConocoPhillips,” he pointed out, disgusted that the company bragged about stock buybacks and dividends for do-nothing investors while nickel-and-diming the ones actually doing the hard work.

All of these indignities added up to a gut check for Goode, as eventually happens to all workers seeking to join our union ranks. Goode knew of other USW members on the North Slope and resolved to lead his own union drive despite the logistical nightmares.

“We couldn’t get together,” Goode said, noting the 267 workers lived at far-flung, inaccessible sites during stints on the North Slope and commuted to their permanent homes—his in Seattle—during off weeks.

“Fifty percent of the workforce up there lives outside the state of Alaska,” he explained. “It made it that much more difficult.”

One of Goode’s coworkers, Will Kholeif, developed a website for the organizing effort. Then Goode began reaching out to the rest of the workforce, some directly and others through a network of contacts he built during decades working for various companies across the North Slope.

“We all felt the same way,” he said, marveling at the workers’ solidarity.

In the end, Goode recalled, so many voted for USW membership that an official with the National Labor Relations Board described the final tally as a “blowout.” The results left company representatives dumbstruck.

“They didn’t know us,” said Goode, noting that bosses failed to take stock of the strength that workers drew from one another.

As he and his coworkers prepare to negotiate their first contract, they look with confidence to the future, knowing that all of us in the USW—850,000 strong—will support them every step of the way.

“We stood together and raised our voices,” Goode said. “Now, the company needs to respond.”

This article was produced by the Independent Media Institute.

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