Chemical workers strike in Hopewell, Virginia

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A minimum of 340 employees at AdvanSix in Hopewell, Virginia went on strike final Thursday after their contract expired on April 6. Members of Worldwide Chemical Staff Union Native 591C, United Affiliation Native 851, Worldwide Brotherhood of Electrical Staff Native 666 and Worldwide Affiliation of Machinists Native 10 have been negotiating with AdvanSix, previously generally known as Allied Chemical, Allied-Sign and Honeywell, starting March 27.

The 340 employees picketing in Hopewell, VA are a part of a the worldwide upsurge of the working class, which incorporates mass strikes and protests in France, Sri Lanka, Greece, and the UK. America can also be witnessing a wave of strikes by academics and college employees who’re demanding higher wages and dealing situations, and industrial employees are additionally urgent for strike motion.

The Hopewell South bargaining unit, which consists of chemical, meals and industrial, machine-operation, electrical and plumbing employees, is demanding wage improve commensurate with successive years of document earnings for AdvanSix. Moreover, employees are demanding affordable hours. At the moment, consecutive 18-hour shifts are a standard prevalence on the nylon-resin producer.

AdvanSix proposed a brand new settlement which gives “a market-based, role-specific wage strategy to make sure we’re offering aggressive wages to our valued workers whereas guaranteeing long-term, sustainable progress,” Erin Kane, President and CEO of AdvanSix said in an announcement launched on Friday. 

The “role-specific wage strategy” the corporate is proposing interprets to half of the employees of the Hopewell South bargaining unit receiving a 6 p.c increase whereas the opposite will obtain solely a 3 p.c improve starting in 12 months two of the contract. This drives a wedge between members of the multifaceted bargaining unit. A report from the unions on Wednesday’s negotiations with the corporate have revealed little on the specifics of the talks.

In accordance with the unions, AdvanSix refused to increase the present labor settlement all through the contract negotiations. Hanging employees had been notified over the Easter vacation that their medical insurance was lower off. 

A employee chatting with an area tv station mentioned, “I’ve been paying for medical insurance with this firm each week. It comes out of my paycheck. I count on medical insurance. Now it’s pulled proper out from beneath my ft.” One mom posted on Fb that she was “scuffling with rescheduling appointments & determining find out how to prolong my oldest [prescription].” One other member of the family of a employee posted: “We as human beings ought to by no means knowingly put others, particularly our youngsters, in danger or be used as pawns for collateral harm.”

Since 1928, Hopewell, VA has been the location of the varied iterations of what’s now referred to as AdvanSix. AdvanSix is a nylon and chemical producer that produces caprolactam, a cloth utilized in carpet fibers, movies and plastics, and fertilizer. It is among the largest producers of ammonium sulfate, an ingredient for fertilizer, on the planet. 

Decided to take care of manufacturing all through the strike, administration has changed hanging employees with salaried and contingent contract workers. In a Fb put up, a hanging employee expressed concern concerning the recklessness of the choice:  “AdvanSix has now turned over operation and upkeep of the plant to wage personnel. It’s alarming to all of us that AdvanSix has chosen to position people with much less coaching, much less information, and far much less expertise in extremely harmful positions.”

This employee’s alarm is justified. On the day the strike was introduced, the Hopewell’s Metropolis Supervisor introduced they’re starting an investigation into environmental violations which had been disclosed in a current report by the Richmond Instances-Dispatch. In her letter, Interim-Metropolis Supervisor Dr. Concetta Maker said, “Our residents deserve and demand a metropolis that’s protected and free from air pollution. In the direction of that finish, we will likely be reaching out the [sic] Commonwealth [of Virginia] to develop a plan of remediation that addresses AdvanSix air high quality and water high quality violations that they’ve obtained over the previous three (3) years.”

In accordance with the paperwork reviewed by the Richmond Instances-Dispatch, AdvanSix was cited 66 occasions since 2015 for violations of the Clear Air and Clear Water Acts.  Information present that the corporate has violated the Clear Air Act each month for the final two years. Solely a 12 months in the past, AdvanSix launched 7.23 tons of extremely poisonous sulfuric acid into the air. The chemical had leaked from tools that inspectors had warned concerning the 12 months earlier than. 

The Virginia Division of Environmental High quality said that AdvanSix has demonstrated “a sample of noncompliance” since 1990. Information present that the corporate has dumped sulfur dioxide, phenol, benzene, and nitrous oxide into the air at alarming ranges and regularity throughout that point. Moreover, chemical runoff from the plant has created dead-zones within the the James River and Hopewell watersheds. Lifeless-zones are areas the place no life can exist attributable to lack of oxygenated water. AdvanSix has a allow permitting it to legally dump over a million kilos of nitrogen into the James River annually, greater than some other plant in Virginia.

Whereas union representatives and the media have targeted on employee calls for for pay raises to mirror the price of dwelling and to fight excessive inflation, primarily based on AdvanSix’s environmental document, enchancment of working situations and employee security have to be a prime precedence.

A sequence of business disasters since February have uncovered the brutal indifference of the ruling elite and the negligence of plant administration in the direction of employees and their communities. The residents of East Palestine, Ohio had been uncovered to toxins within the air and of their ingesting water after the chemical spill brought on by a prepare derailment on February 3 was set on fireplace in an effort to rapidly resume operations. 

Final month, a chemical plant close to Philadelphia spilled roughly 8,100 gallons of a water-soluble acrylic polymer answer right into a tributary of the Delaware River. The polymer contained methyl methacrylate, butyl acrylate and ethyl acrylate which threatened ingesting water for town’s 1.6 million residents along with these dwelling in surrounding areas.

The identical day, seven employees had been killed in an explosion on the R.M. Palmer Firm in West Studying, Pennsylvania, after reviews of a gasoline leak had been ignored by administration.

Solely this Tuesday, a fireplace consumed an enormous recycling facility in Richmond, Indiana, releasing untold quantities of poisons over the previous industrial city. The plant was a identified hazard and its homeowners had been cited  for security violations quite a few occasions. Over 2,000 residents dwelling inside half a mile of the catastrophe evacuated whereas others had been advised to maintain home windows and doorways closed and switch off air flow methods.

The unions and capitalist politicians within the state are calling for a fast settlement as AdvanSix merchandise are essential to essential areas of the worldwide provide chain akin to agriculture. In remarks made by Republican Governor Glenn Younkin Tuesday, he mentioned, “That is only a second for them to acknowledge that not all people goes to get what they need, however they should come collectively and attain a deal.’

Worldwide Chemical Staff Union consultant Tommy Humphries echoed the governor’s view that administration and employees have comparable pursuits when he mentioned, “We really feel prefer it’s a partnership between the 2. If the corporate is profitable, then the individuals ought to be profitable.” 

In actuality, AdvanSix, like different companies worldwide, have amassed document earnings within the final three years whereas employees have risked life and limb via the COVID pandemic and unsafe working situations as their actual wages decline. 

Each pro-corporate events have bent to the calls for of the ruling class that earnings stay sacrosanct over human life, each of their response to the COVID pandemic, which has killed effectively over a million within the US, and the refusal of oversight businesses akin to OSHA and the EPA to impose significant penalties for security violations.