For Immediate Release // Excuse cross-posting // Please share
Date: February 11, 2015
Contact: SG Sarmiento, NDLON, 202-746-2099
NDLON on Oil Workers Strike: We Are Not Disposable
(Los Angeles) In reaction to the national strike by oil refinery workers, Pablo Alvarado, Executive Director of NDLON, issued the following statement:
“On behalf of its 45 member organizations and thousands of day laborers across the US, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) stands in solidarity and support with the striking USW oil workers. Day laborers know what it is like to go to a job where their employers do not place any value on their lives, to risk their safety for a paycheck, in unconscionable and exploitative working conditions.
“No one should have to trade his or her health and safety in order to make a living. No community should have to live in fear of a deadly explosion because oil companies are creating conditions that endanger lives. We applaud the striking workers for pressing these oil companies to recognize that workers are not disposable. Every individual, every worker, has dignity and value.”
On February 1, the United Steelworkers announced that its members, oil refinery workers in some of the most dangerous jobs in the country, decided to conduct a nationwide strike at nine oil refineries across the US. They stated in announcing this work stoppage: “…oil companies are too greedy to make a positive change in the workplace and they continue to value production and profit over health and safety, workers and the community.” This is the first time these workers have been on strike since 1985.
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