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California Biofuel Refinery Workers Say Understaffing and Fatigue Threaten Their Safety and the Community
insideclimatenews.org/news/23072026/california-biofuel-refinery-worker-safety/
After a catastrophic fire at a Bay Area renewable fuel refinery nearly killed a worker, his union colleagues fought for stronger protections. Now they’re locked out.
Liza Gross
By Liza Gross
July 23, 2026
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Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, who represents the county where Marathon’s Martinez Renewables operates, visits striking workers in early May. Credit: Courtesy of USW Local 5
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, who represents the county where Marathon’s Martinez Renewables operates, visits striking workers in early May. Credit: Courtesy of USW Local 5
MARTINEZ, Calif.—Shortly after midnight on Nov. 19, 2023, while a processing unit at the Marathon Martinez Renewable Fuels refinery was starting up for the first time, hydrogen and diesel leaking from an overheated metal tube ignited into a massive blaze that engulfed Jerome Serrano, leaving the father of four in a months-long fight for his life.
Now Serrano’s co-workers have been locked out of their jobs at the refinery northeast of San Francisco after striking to improve what they describe as dangerous conditions caused by understaffing, relentless overtime shifts and a contract with fewer benefits than those offered to their union colleagues at other refineries.
Marathon Petroleum, the largest U.S. oil refiner, stopped operating processing units at its Martinez facility in 2020 while its plan to convert the facility from a petroleum refinery to one for renewable fuels underwent environmental review. Two years later, after county supervisors signed off on the project in a unanimous decision, Marathon started retrofitting machinery in the 113-year-old plant, and began processing vegetable oil and animal fats into renewable fuels the next year.
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As operators tried to get a renewable diesel hydroprocessing unit up and running, no one knew that a startup valve was open when it should have been closed. That allowed fuel combustion to continue to generate heat, testing the limits of a metal tube in the furnace. Field operators were summoned to close fuel gas valves that fed the furnace, but the tube became “dangerously hot,” federal investigators determined, and failed. The breached tube released 200,000 pounds of highly flammable renewable diesel and 2,000 pounds of hydrogen, which quickly ignited and nearly burned Serrano to death.
Workers hoped a new contract would help prevent similar accidents in the future.
The National Oil Bargaining Program (NOBP) represents more than 200 United Steel Workers bargaining units in contract negotiations across the petroleum and renewables industry, and reached an agreement in February. Marathon was the lead company in national negotiations, so Martinez’s union representatives didn’t expect trouble bargaining terms for their refinery, said Jim Payne, secretary-treasurer for USW Local 5.
Instead, the Local 5 bargaining team found themselves sitting across the table from a “union-busting attorney” who wasn’t interested in compromise, Payne said. “I’ve been doing this for 40 years and I’ve never had an attorney sit at the table for bargaining.”
Workers came to the table with only two proposals to retain agreements they already had with the company, Payne said. They wanted to continue earning double-time pay for working the sixth or seventh 12-hour shift in a row, and time-and-a-half to be on standby before or after a shift in case another employee didn’t make it to work.
The NOBP negotiated a four-year contractwith Marathon for workers employed by dozens of oil companies. But the $88 billion company offered the local union a three-year contract, arguing that they’re not part of the national program anymore since they process renewables—even though workers at another company’s renewables refinery are covered.
Plus, Payne told the company, the union gets to decide who’s covered by the contract, not them.
What’s more, both petroleum and renewable feedstocks are processed into highly flammable products like gasoline, jet fuel and diesel, USW Local 5 leadership argued when it petitioned California’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board to include renewable facilities under petroleum refinery safety regulations.
The board agreed and granted the request two years ago. The state Legislature followed suit a few months later with a law that required a similar change. But while Cal/OSHA agreed that the principal hazards of refining renewable and petroleum feedstocks “are nearly identical,” it still has not updated its rules.
Cal/OSHA is developing proposed amendments to expand the scope of state refinery regulations to include qualifying renewable fuel refineries, said Denisse Gómez, a spokesperson for the agency. “The proposed amendments are currently under review before they can proceed through the formal rulemaking process,” she said.
After months of negotiations, Marathon imposed the three-year agreement, which they called their “last, best and final offer,” Payne said.
That resulted in a strike, he said, because the offer didn’t comply with the national agreement. In June, workers made an unconditional return-to-work offer. The company rejected it, he said, “which turned a strike into a lockout.”
Refinery workers strike outside Marathon’s Martinez Renewables in May. Credit: Courtesy of USW Local 5
Refinery workers strike outside Marathon’s Martinez Renewables in May. Credit: Courtesy of USW Local 5
Marathon spokesperson Jamal Kheiry said the company is committed to reaching an agreement that is satisfactory to all parties.
“We decided to not accept their offer to return to work at this time, and instead continue negotiating in good faith toward an agreement that will support the long-term success of the facility, our employees, our customers and the communities we serve,” Kheiry said in an emailed statement.
The company continues to staff the Martinez Renewables facility with highly qualified Marathon personnel, Kheiry said. “Our team includes supervisors, engineers and technical experts with extensive experience and training in safe, reliable plant operations.”
Marathon did not answer questions about how many safety technicians are currently working in the plant who have the expertise to respond to an accidental release and prevent another potentially catastrophic incident.
Negotiations are scheduled to resume Friday.
Skeleton Crew
Employees at the Martinez refinery redoubled their long-time efforts to fight short-staffing and safety concerns after Marathon implemented massive layoffs when it shifted to renewables, said Nick Plurkowski, USW Local 5 president.
The company laid off 700 workers in 2020, including 350 with Local 5, and had only about 220 workers in 2023 when it resumed operations as a renewable fuel refinery.
The entrance to Marathon’s biofuels refinery in Martinez, Calif. Credit: U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
The entrance to Marathon’s biofuels refinery in Martinez, Calif. Credit: U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
The skeleton crew lacked the safety technicians who used to roam around the plant monitoring conditions, and included a lot of new people working with flammable materials, Plurkowski said. “The safety aspect of that is huge.”
The company is doubling down on problems that are making the plant unsafe, Plurkowski said, like turning four days of mandatory 12-hour shifts into five, six or more days of 16- and 18-hour shifts to compensate for understaffing.
“It’s just not good for the workers and for the public to be having workers working these 18-hour days when you’re running a highly volatile chemical facility,” said Josh Sonnenfeld, senior policy researcher with the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center.
“At one point they did recognize that they were overworking us,” said striking refinery operator Bob Bulman, standing on the picket line on July 16, the 81st day of the strike.
That’s why management and the union crafted a letter of agreement that workers would receive double-time pay for the sixth and seventh day, said Bulman, who has worked at the plant since 2008, most recently monitoring tank levels for raw feed and finished products. But the company found that arrangement costly.
Bob Bulman, a field operator at Marathon’s Martinez Renewables refinery, stands on the picket line on July 16, the 81st day of a workers’ strike for safer conditions. Credit: Liza Gross/Inside Climate News
Bob Bulman, a field operator at Marathon’s Martinez Renewables refinery, stands on the picket line on July 16, the 81st day of a workers’ strike for safer conditions. Credit: Liza Gross/Inside Climate News
“They saw how much they were paying because we’re understaffed. Now they want to take that away. But that’s not the reason why we’re out here on strike,” he said. “Our main concerns were that we were overworked and understaffed.”
Workers are exhausted on the job, and many face an hour-plus commute, Bulman said. “You don’t want to put these guys not doing just 12, but now doing 16 and 18 hours working their butts off, driving on the road next to you and falling asleep, taking you out.”
If workers are walking around “basically intoxicated” because they’ve been sleep-deprived over many days while supervisors pressure them to go faster, Plurkowski said, it’s just a matter of time before another disaster strikes.
Inherent Risks
Plurkowski started out as a refinery worker years ago at the old Shell refinery (now Martinez Refining), a few miles west of the Marathon facility. As a newbie, he shadowed an experienced operator doing all the tasks he was hired to do, then did them himself while someone checked his work and answered the inevitable questions that arose.
But since Marathon laid off so many employees when it transitioned to producing renewable fuels, inexperienced workers have fewer opportunities for safety training or advice from senior colleagues, which is even more important during inherently risky operations like starting or shutting down a unit, Plurkowski said.
The fire that nearly killed Serrano happened when “they were just fighting the unit to get it started,” Plurkowski said. “They just kept at it, they didn’t back off to re-check what was happening. And that led to him being burned over more than 80 percent of his body through no fault of his own.”
The vast majority of the people who were starting up the new unit had been there less than six months, said Payne, the Local 5 financial officer.
Surveillance footage of the furnace fire at the Marathon Martinez Renewable Fuels refinery in 2023. Credit: Marathon via U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
Surveillance footage of the furnace fire at the Marathon Martinez Renewable Fuels refinery in 2023. Credit: Marathon via U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
Serrano was helping someone who was too busy to deal with the overheated equipment. That worker, who found Serrano first, used to be a medic. Payne believes the only reason Serrano survived was because of that worker’s medical training.
The seriousness of the accident prompted the county’s Contra Costa Health staff to commission a third-party evaluation of the refinery’s management system and safety culture. The report, released last year, found “a potential polarizing disconnect” between operators and administrators in the refinery.
Operators consistently provided more negative ratings regarding both safety prioritization and resource allocation, the report found. It highlighted the need for a policy that not only allows workers to report safety concerns without fear of retaliation but also prioritizes safety over production demands and pressures to work quickly.
A report released 27 years ago found similar problems after a catastrophic accident at the same site, when it was a crude oil refinery run by Tosco, a company that no longer exists. The independent audit flagged “an adversarial relationship between managers and workers” as a contributor to a fire that killed four workers and seriously injured one.
The 1999 disaster was caused by an accidental release of naphtha, a highly volatile hydrocarbon mixture that Marathon now produces from biofuels at its Martinez plant.
Rescuing Stranded Assets
Renewable refineries leverage existing infrastructure from crude operations by using hydrogen to remove oxygen from biobased oils and fats. In petroleum refining, hydrogen is used to lower the sulfur contentof diesel fuels.
The furnace that Serrano was trying to turn off had been used to remove sulfur to make diesel from petroleum before it was turned into a hydrodeoxygenation unit to remove oxygen from oils and fats.
Hydrodeoxygenation processors make diesel that’s functionally identical to petroleum diesel.
“Renewable facilities may be even more prone to explosions and fires because converting renewable feedstocks into fuels relies on hydrogen-intensive reactions that release substantially more heat in processors already prone to overheating,” according to an analysis by Greg Karras, an independent scientist who runs the clean-energy advisory firm Community Energy reSource.
“There’s definitely a relationship between the hydrogen intensity, the hydrogen flaring and the number of hydrogen-related fires and explosions in the refining industry,” Karras said. “Switching to processed vegetable oils and animal fats is going to increase those hazards.”
After Marathon started its biofuel project, it flared almost every day, said Karras, who has spent decades studying pollution and environmental justice issues. After seeing flaring at the facility for about six months, Karras reported the problem to the Interagency Refinery Task Force that was formed after a catastrophic accident at Chevron’s Richmond Refinery north of San Francisco released a massive toxic cloud over nearby cities and sent 15,000 people seeking medical care.
“People are going to be hurt or die, and you need to shut it down until this is fixed,” Karras told the task force at a public meeting.
“Then it blew up,” Karras told Inside Climate News. “And then their records disappeared.”
California officials did not answer questions about why the task force didn’t retain minutes of public meetings or what it did with the information Karras provided.
Marathon staff could have shut down the overheated furnace from the control room, reported experts with the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), an independent federal agency. But the high temperature alarms didn’t initiate a shutdown in production, the report noted, because their activation initiated troubleshooting efforts instead, per Marathon policies.
“Marathon did not adequately ensure that the Martinez facility met the company’s minimum safety expectations before it started up as a renewable diesel facility,” the CSB concluded.
“Mad as Hell”
Plurkowski appeared before the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors July 14 to warn the board, which approved Marathon’s renewable conversion permit, that fatigue and understaffing was at an all-time high. His two minutes for comment were up before he was able to tell the supervisors his main point.
“Now we have Marathon basically locking us out until we agree to even more hours than we’re already doing there,” Plurkowski wanted to say.
The board should encourage Marathon to return to the bargaining table in good faith and negotiate a fair contract, he told Inside Climate News. He also wants the board to add specific, enforceable rules to the county’s industrial safety ordinance on fatigue and minimum staffing requirements.
People who live near these refineries know all too well that safety problems inside the plant threaten surrounding communities.
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These accidents and issues keep getting repeated, said Heidi Taylor, who co-founded the watchdog group Healthy Martinez after another local refiner, the Martinez Refining Company, showered her community with 24 tons of heavy metals and other chemicals four years ago on Thanksgiving. Investigators cited poor fatigue management as a contributor to the accident.
The refinery apologized to the community “for dust releases” and other incidents and said it had implemented nearly a dozen corrective measures.
Regulators say they are learning from all the accidents, but they’re not, Taylor said.
“That is what is so scary about living in Martinez,” she said. “You never know when the next big event is going to happen.”
Multiple reports conclude that refineries need to be properly staffed to avoid fatigue, but no one’s holding them accountable and community members are “mad as hell,” Taylor said. “I want to see more aggressive enforcement and follow through from our regulatory agencies.”
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, a Democrat whose district includes most of Contra Costa, told Inside Climate News he’s spent over 30 years dealing with the oil industry in an effort to protect the interests of consumers, workers and the environment.
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier
There is a pervasive culture in the industry that prioritizes profits over safety, said DeSaulnier, who has visited workers on the picket line at Marathon’s Martinez Renewables refinery. “I’ve been to too many funerals of refinery workers due to corporate negligence.”
DeSaulnier fears he will have to go to more funerals if Marathon doesn’t change its practices.
Marathon’s Martinez refinery has received nearly 70 notices of violations from the air district for flaring and other infractions as a renewable fuels facility over the past three years.
“That’s a big red flag that plant operations are not smooth inside, that conditions are likely unsafe,” said USW’s Plurkowski.
“The thing that we hear all the time from steel workers on the picket line is that refinery safety saves lives,” said Marie Choi, strategy director for the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, a California environmental justice organization.
“When they say that, they’re not just talking about the lives of the workers in the plant,” Choi said. “They’re also talking about the lives of community members that live on the fencelines of these big, 100-year-old, polluting refineries.”
Having people managing dangerous processes on aging equipment on three or four hours of sleep, Choi said, “is really a recipe for disaster.”
Choi, who has visited workers on the picket line often since the strike started, thinks the company is trying to break the union.
Without a union in a refinery, who’s going to speak up when conditions are unsafe? she asked.
A lockout is “an extreme and harsh tactic,” said UC Berkeley’s Sonnenfeld.
If workers lose their union in a facility like this, they lose their voice and ability to speak out on safety issues, which affects the whole community, he said. “We’ve seen this over and over again.”
Where’s the Accountability?
California recognized the critical role workers play in preventing accidents when it approved “landmark” refinery safety rules in 2017. But the Western States Petroleum Association, a leading industry trade group, sued the state, arguing that the rules “grant unions new and unbargained-for authority over employers’ safety processes and safety-related expenditures.”
The state settled with the oil lobby group and proposed amending the law in January 2025, a month before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed rescinding key requirements for worker participation in safety plans in federal rules designed to prevent chemical accidents.
A coalition of union and public interest groups said the amendments would “significantly endanger” employees and communities near refineries by weakening the power of front-line workers to influence safety plans, among other provisions. The coalition called on California regulators to retain its landmark safety rules “as the current federal administration seeks to roll-back essential environmental, community and worker safety protections.”
“Marathon is really at the center of these issues,” said Sonnenfeld.
As a facility that receives public subsidies and taxpayer dollars through the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, he said, “policymakers and really everyone in this region of the state should be concerned about what’s the standard that we’re setting for refineries in California.”
California paid nearly $20 billion throughLow Carbon Fuel Standard credits to biofuel suppliers, including Marathon, a February analysis from The Climate Center, a clean energy think tank, found. The subsidies allowed gasoline and diesel refiners to comply with the LCFS by producing biofuels or buying biofuel credits. Because biofuels use the same infrastructure as gas and diesel—which would otherwise lose market value—they outcompete zero-emission vehicles and “lock in a commitment to future carbon emissions,” the report noted.
Sonnenfeld believes California policymakers need to explain how they expect these publicly subsidized renewable facilities to treat their workers and ensure their facilities run safely.
Cal/OSHA did not respond to questions about how it will guarantee the safety of employees at renewable fuel refineries that receive billions in taxpayer subsidies if it does not ensure workers have a meaningful voice in safety plans.
If there had been a proper process-hazard analysis in place when Marathon restarted its operations in 2023 as required by the code regulating petroleum refineries, USW’s Plurkowski said, they would have checked every single part of every piece of equipment with a worker to map out all the potential scenarios that could cause problems.
But they didn’t do that, he said.
As workers approach nearly three months without a paycheck, Plurkowski wants to see them get back to work. But with negotiations set to resume Friday, safety has to be a priority, he said.
And with even fewer people keeping the refinery going since the strike, he said, “it just scares the hell out of me to think that these guys are going to go back in the plant once again after a prolonged period of time outside of the plant.”
Who knows how many valves could again be in the wrong position, just waiting for the right conditions to cause another fire like the one that injured Serrano, Plurkowski said.
“I’m really scared that it’s going to happen again.”
insideclimatenews.org
After a catastrophic fire at a Bay Area renewable fuel refinery nearly killed a worker, his union colleagues fought for stronger protections. Now they’re locked out.
Lessons of Minneapolis Teamster General Strike For Today
laborfest.net/2026/event/lessons-of-minneapolis-teamster-general-strike-for-today/
Wednesday July 8 @ 5:00 pm pst/7:00 pm cst/8:00 pm est
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Zoom event
With Professor Bryan Palmer
The 1934 Minneapolis Teamster general strike was a pivotal point in national organizing particularly for Teamsters. The lessons of how that strike took place and how it was successful despite the role of the employers, thugs, the government and National Guard which was brought into break the strike.
Bryan Palmer has written one of the most important histories of this strike titled Revolutionary Teamsters, The Minneapolis Truckers’ Strikes of 1934 and will talk about the lessons for today.
Events for July 2026 – LaborFest 2026
laborfest.net
With Professor Bryan Palmer The 1934 Minneapolis Teamster general strike was a pivotal point in national organizing particularly for Teamsters.
Jim Crow 2, Redistricting, Labor the Fight Against Racism & The New Confederacy
laborfest.net/2026/event/jim-crow-2-redistricting-labor-the-fight-against-racism-the-new-confeder…
Friday July 10 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm PDT
Zoom event
The open move to disenfranchise the Black people and remove Black representatives is part of the effort to sanitize Black history and return to the Confederacy.
This panel will look at what this means to Black people and the Black working class and the role of unions and the working class as a whole.
Initial speakers:
Steve White – Teacher In CTA
Barry Anderson – IBT 856 Steward, Musician
George Wright – Professor CSUC & Skyline College
Akua Holt Houston – Houston Texas KPFT
C.C. Cambell – Independent Jounalist New Orleans, Louisiana
Cheryl Thornton – SEIU 1021 SF Community Healthcare Chapter
Brena Barros – SEIU 1021 SF General Hospital Chapter
Orlando Tolbin – SEIU 1021 SF Mental Health Mission Mental Health Clinic
www.laborfest.net
LaborFest 2026 – LaborFest 2026
www.laborfest.net
The massive industrialization of Vietnam and the conditions of women migrant workers is a serious issue and the focus of this report.
“An Attack on All of Us”: Labor Rallies at Courthouse for the Minnesota 15
workdaymagazine.org/an-attack-on-all-of-us-labor-rallies-at-courthouse-for-the-minnesota-15/
MINNESOTANEWSUNIONS
Ahead of the first hearing for the 15 activists and community defenders charged with conspiracy by the federal government, a crowd full of supporters gathered and demonstrated in solidarity.
BY AMIE STAGER | 18 hours ago
Tony LaRose, a member of IBEW Local 110, has been deeply disturbed ever since two of his coworkers and union brothers were arrested and had their houses raided by federal law enforcement on June 16. “This has been an attack on one of us, which makes it an attack on all of us,” LaRose said to a crowd of demonstrators rallying in downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday at noon.
The crowd of around 300 was full of people wearing shifts with their union logos and colors, and some held signs that said, “Community, not conspiracy!” They gathered in front of the Diana E. Murphy federal courthouse to call on the government to drop the charges against fifteen anti-ICE union and community activists ahead of their first hearing. After the indictment in June of 15 Minnesotans, many of whom are union members, the state’s labor movement and community organizations are continuing to stand in solidarity with those who were targeted with charges of criminal conspiracy for activity related to protesting ICE. The speakers were overwhelmingly from the labor movement, and they argued that the charges are a form of political repression for the widespread response to Operation Metro Surge, are intended to silence dissent, and are an attack on unions’ and workers’ rights to freedom of speech, protest, and organizing.
Olga González is a professor at Macalester College in St. Paul who read a statement from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). “The Macalester chapter of the AAUP condemns the federal indictment of professor Erik Davis and 14 others for exercising their constitutionally protected right to protest the actions of the federal government during Operation Metro Surge,” she said, addressing the crowd. “The citizens of Minnesota, including Professor Davis and co-defendants, participated in a broad, popular movement to protect their communities against an indecent assault by our government.”
Educators in Minnesota have been active in that response, raising funds for families and basic needs such as groceries and rent money. Treasure Thoreson is a special education teacher in Minneapolis and member of Minneapolis Federation of Educators Local 59 who spoke in support of the Minnesota 15 and denounced the targeting of public schools during Operation Metro Surge. “ICE snatched parents who were dropping their kids off in the morning. They followed school buses to school drop-off zones, and people’s homes to kidnap them in front of their own children, sometimes leaving them alone. School staff responded by being good neighbors,” she said at the rally. “Don’t stop being good neighbors.”
Speakers pointed out that the federal government has not yet brought charges against the officers who shot and killed two Minnesotans. “Instead of holding federal agents accountable for shooting and killing Renee Good and our union brother Alex Pretti, the Trump administration continues to weaponize the Justice department to settle scores and intimidate citizens for being good neighbors and exercising our constitutional rights,” said Todd Dahlstrom, the organizing and growth director at the Minnesota AFL-CIO, which represents 300,000 union members in the state. The national AFL-CIO just held its 30th convention in Minneapolis, where the anti-ICE resistance was celebrated.
Organizers say around 100,000 people marched downtown on January 23 in the economic shutdown against ICE. This included graduate workers at the University of Minnesota, according to President of Graduate Labor Union-UE Local 1005 Ben Lewis. “Fifteen people were indicted. Something else was indicted as well, our ability to organize,” he said to the crowd. “It is very clear to me that the feds looked at the wave of organizing that swept this city and they’re now working very hard to criminalize and warn us against building on that.”
Samantha Diaz Powell is deputy chief of staff at SEIU Local 26, which represents janitors, security officers, airport workers, and rideshare drivers, many of whom are members of communities targeted by Operation Metro Surge. “Over 100,000 of us peacefully marched in minus twenty degree weather. We stood up to the attacks on our state,” she said. “Ahead of our midterm elections, the Trump regime’s weaponized Department of Justice is lashing out in hopes of intimidating people who challenge their corruption, their abuses of power, and attacks on our freedoms.”
The government is trying to make an example out of the Minnesota 15, according to Chris Rubesch, president of Minnesota Nurses Association. “What happens in that courthouse is happening in our name. I don’t consent to these actions,” he said. “If this stands, it endangers every one of my members’ future ability to use their union rights, and that is not acceptable.”
A line of people in front of a grey, red, and blue entrance to a government building. In the bottom right corner on a patch of grass lies posters, one reads “10,000 un-indicted co-conspirators"
People line up to pack the courtroom in support of the Minnesota 15. Photo by Amie Stager.
Monique Cullars-Doty is co-founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota and one of the protestors who was charged with conspiracy against religious freedom for disrupting a service at Cities Church in St. Paul where an ICE field director works as a pastor. “I want to encourage everyone to continue to stand up for them, encourage them and their families, let them know they are not alone and that the work they have done here is important,” she said at the rally.
The energetic crowd and speakers say they remain committed to standing in solidarity with the Minnesota 15. “This past winter, the Trump administration tried to break Minnesota solidarity,” said Dahlstrom at the rally. “They failed. Now they will try to break us in the court room. They will fail again.”
By Amie Stager
|
18 hours ago
Amie Stager is the Associate Editor for Workday Magazine.
“An Attack on All of Us”: Labor Rallies at Courthouse for the Minnesota 15
workdaymagazine.org
Ahead of the first hearing for the 15 activists and community defenders charged with conspiracy by the federal government, a crowd full of supporters gathered and demonstrated in solidarity.
Apple Whistleblower Ashely Gjovik At San Jose Federal Court Over Polluting Apple Fab In Santa Clara
youtu.be/TscxhsxwMU0
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SF Labor Commemorates Coors Successful Labor Boycott And Opposes the Attacks On LBGTQ Today
youtu.be/DHP-t2qCzWE
A commemoration was held for the labor community boycott of Coors beer and opposition to attacks on LBGTQ people then and today. The SF Labor Council endorsed the commemoration as well as the Teamsters Joint Council and after the rally the trade unionists and supporters marched to join the Tran March in San Francisco.
Additional Media:
“Brewed with Blood”: The Coors Beercott of the 1970s
daily.jstor.org/brewed-with-blood-the-coors-beercott-of-the-1970s/
Teamsters Pride At Work: A Look Back At The Coors Boycott
teamster.org/2017/06/teamsters-pride-work-look-back-coors-boycott/
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www.labormedia.net
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Unions are furious after GM replaces 1,000 workers with 50 robots
www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/unions-are-furious-after-gm-replaces-1000-workers-with-50-robots/ar-…
Story by Stefan Milovanovic
Automation on the Factory Zero assembly line, where GM builds its electric trucks | ©Image Credit: General Motors.jpeg
Automation on the Factory Zero assembly line, where GM builds its electric trucks | ©Image Credit: General Motors
More than 1,000 workers at General Motors’ flagship Detroit assembly plant were idled, many of them indefinitely, as the company installed 50 robots. The United Auto Workers (UAW) union is calling the move exactly what it appears to be: automation is displacing people.
The robots in question, known as “cobots” (short for collaborative robots), have been installed on the assembly line at Factory Zero, the Detroit-Hamtramck EV plant where GM builds its electric trucks.
The changes come as the company’s EV production faces headwinds from slowing demand and cost pressures, even as GM continues broader electrification efforts alongside its ICE and hybrid lineup.
On the line and under the hood
At Factory Zero, the cobots are now bolting body panels onto vehicles as they move down the assembly line, working alongside the people who haven’t been laid off, as per AutoBlog.
GM, however, has been careful in its framing. The company insists the machines are not replacing workers but are instead helping the plant stay competitive while improving safety and ergonomics for the remaining workers.
“We’ve been installing cobots across our manufacturing footprint as part of a broader push to bring more advanced technology into our operations,” company spokesman Kevin Kelly explained to Crain’s Detroit Business. “At Factory ZERO, we are implementing them alongside our team, helping improve safety and ergonomics, while keeping our operations flexible and competitive,” he added.
The laid-off workers are only temporarily idled, according to the company, but GM has yet to provide a timeline for their return.
United Auto Workers Local 22 president James Cotton isn’t buying any of it. To him, the cobots are about one thing: taking away jobs from union members.
The 2028 collision course
“The bigger trend of declining labor needs in the auto industry isn’t subtle. The number of labor hours required to build a single car has dropped substantially since the 1980s due to automation and efficiency gains, per industry reports.
UAW wages, though, have continued to climb. The union secured historic gains in its 2023 contract and is expected to push hard for stronger job protections in its 2028 negotiations.
Cotton has another problem with the cobots, even beyond the layoffs. He doesn’t buy GM’s claim that the machines make things safer. Robots working right next to humans, he argues, raise their own safety questions. The union has already filed grievances against the company over them.
Add to it all, cobots showed up at a tough moment for GM’s EV business. Demand has been slowing, largely because of high costs, if the American Automobile Association (AAA) is anything to go by. The company has paused production at Factory Zero more than once over the past year as a result.
UAW President Shawn Fain framed the wider stakes in more forceful terms during his speech at the UAW’s quadrennial Constitutional Convention in Detroit in mid-June 2026: “The fruits of our labor have multiplied like never before, but workers aren’t reaping the harvest,” Fain said.
“And if AI continues to be used as an accessory to that crime, it has to be stopped. It doesn’t have to be this way. In a just society, when workers create more value, they see more of the benefit,” he added.
The numbers behind the layoffs make the union’s frustrations harder to swallow as the company posted $4.25 billion in profits for the first quarter of 2026, up 22 percent from the same period a year earlier, as per Yahoo Finance.
Unions are furious after GM replaces 1,000 workers with 50 robots
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More than 1,000 workers at General Motors’ flagship Detroit assembly plant were idled, many of them indefinitely, as the company installed 50 robots. The United Auto Workers (UAW) union is calling t…
USW 5 oil workers have been locked out and are on strike at the Marathon renewable refinery in Concord, California
youtu.be/Ed9Trmm6SHY
USW 5 Marathon bargaining committee member Carl Smith talks about the issues including dangerous understaffing
and the union busting tactics of the company to weaken and break out this contract from the other national contracts.
He also reports on the Project Labor Agreements that the Building Trades Unions have signed that require that their
members cross the picket lines and do the worker of striking USW5 members.
This interview was done on 6/22/26
Additional Media:
On The Line In The Fight For Justice: USW 5 Chevron Richmond Refinery Workers Strike
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USW Striking Oil Workers And Supporters Speakout For Health And Safety At Tesoro Refinery
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USW Unionists Report On Richmond Chevron Refinery Fire At US Chemical Safety Board Meeting
youtu.be/EtLclfELgfc
United Steel Workers Kim Nibarger On Health And Safety For Oil Refiinery Workers & The Communities
youtu.be/eJ-YVAucxJM
Dr. Rose On Cal-Osha, The Chevron Richmond Refinery, Health And Safety For Workers & The Community
youtu.be/QnJfC44Ew3w
Cover-up:The Chevron Richmond Refinery Explosion-Fire, Health And Safety And Cal-Osha
youtu.be/hplpolLXV6Y
Cal-OSHA Mandated to take effective criminal action to immediately remediate the Richmond refinery multiple safety hazards
www.upwa.info/documents/Cal-osha-Rose.htm
US CSB Report
www.csb.gov/assets/1/16/Draft_Report_for_Public_Comment.pdf
Additional Info:
“Solidarity Mondays” and visit the picket line any time, 24/7, at the intersection of Solano Way and Arnold Industrial
Way Concord, CA. Send contributions to the strike fund to USW Local 5, at P.O. Box 349, Martinez, CA 94553-0034
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
www.labormedia.net
Support Ryan: Fired for Union Organizing at UFCW 2013 …https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-ryan-fired-for-union-organizing?attribution_id=sl:48d80d14-aba0-4b2c-b9b9-3b6cf7305aaa&lang=en_US&ts=1780882…
USW 5 oil workers have been locked out and are on strike at the Marathon renewable refinery in Concord, California.
youtu.be/Ed9Trmm6SHY
USW 5 Marathon bargaining committee member Carl Smith talks about the issues including dangerous understaffing and the union busting tactics of the company to weaken and break out this contract from the other national contracts.
He also reports on the Project Labor Agreements that the Building Trades Unions have signed that require that their members cross the picket lines and do the worker of striking USW5 members.
This interview was done on 6/22/26
Additional Media:
On The Line In The Fight For Justice: USW 5 Chevron Richmond Refinery Workers Strike
youtu.be/Ed9Trmm6SHY
USW Striking Oil Workers And Supporters Speakout For Health And Safety At Tesoro Refinery
youtu.be/kEcoHjGJ-LQ
USW Unionists Report On Richmond Chevron Refinery Fire At US Chemical Safety Board Meeting
youtu.be/EtLclfELgfc
United Steel Workers Kim Nibarger On Health And Safety For Oil Refiinery Workers & The Communities
youtu.be/eJ-YVAucxJM
Dr. Rose On Cal-Osha, The Chevron Richmond Refinery, Health And Safety For Workers & The Community
youtu.be/QnJfC44Ew3w
Cover-up:The Chevron Richmond Refinery Explosion-Fire, Health And Safety And Cal-Osha
youtu.be/hplpolLXV6Y
Cal-OSHA Mandated to take effective criminal action to immediately remediate the Richmond refinery multiple safety hazards
www.upwa.info/documents/Cal-osha-Rose.htm
US CSB Report
www.csb.gov/assets/1/16/Draft_Report_for_Public_Comment.pdf
Additional Info:
“Solidarity Mondays” and visit the picket line any time, 24/7, at the intersection of Solano Way and Arnold Industrial Way Concord, CA. Send contributions to the strike fund to USW Local 5, at P.O. Box 349, Martinez, CA 94553-0034
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
www.labormedia.net
Support Ryan: Fired for Union Organizing at UFCW 2013 …https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-ryan-fired-for-union-organizing?attribution_id=sl:48d80d14-aba0-4b2c-b9b9-3b6cf7305aaa&lang=en_US&ts=1780882…