You can help save more than 250 good, family-sustaining United Steelworkers (USW) refinery jobs, along with more than 2,000 other related jobs, by signing a USW petition urging state and local officials to work with Tesoro Corp. to find a buyer for its Kapolei, Hawaii, refinery.

The company announced earlier this year that it planned to close the refinery in Oahu, where the USW represents some 250 production and maintenance workers. Click here to sign the petition.

United Steelworkers (USW) members at the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes, Wash., have voted to accept the company’s latest contract offer. Shortly after USW members protested May 3 outside Tesoro’s shareholder meeting in San Antonio, the company presented a revised “last-and-final offer” that reportedly included some key concessions on workers’ benefits.

Patrick Young from the United Steelworkers, sends us this.

Three years ago, members of the United Steelworkers (USW) went to the bargaining table with the big oil companies to negotiate changes to health and safety programs at oil refineries that would keep workers safe. Across the board, the industry said, “No.” They weren’t interested in bargaining meaningful and enforceable improvements to refinery safety.

Gary Beevers, United Steelworkers (USW) international vice president for Oil Bargaining, sends us this report. Beevers has extensive experience negotiating with major oil companies with the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union (OCAW).

A little after midnight on Good Friday last year, a heat exchanger on a naphtha hydrotreater unit at the Tesoro oil refinery in Anacortes, Wash., catastrophically failed.  The unit exploded, setting off a blast that shook homes five miles away and igniting a fire that could be seen anywhere in Anacortes.  Three oil workers died in the blast; four others died at the hospital from injuries sustained in the accident.