"For years Lyondell has outsourced their scaffolding work to out-of-state workers," said Carpenters Local 916 Business Representative Ken Ballenger. "That risks safety for money. We are out here to send a message that there are plenty of local, qualified people who can do the work and keep the money here in the local economy."
May 5, 2010 – Cindy Wojdyla Cain for The Herald-News
AUX SABLE TOWNSHIP -- Hundreds of union members, many of them out of work, lined Route 6 near Morris on Monday and Tuesday to protest the hiring of out-of-state workers by LyondellBasell.
"It's like the ultimate slap in the face," said Jim Sweeney, president and business agent for International Operators Union Local 150.
Local unions built the chemical plant and maintained it for 40 years; now workers are being imported from the South to take jobs away from local people, he said.
Union officials said most of the 1,300 workers hired for the scheduled plant maintenance work are from Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, not Illinois.
"You've got workers coming in from all kinds of states, and right here on the street you've got pipefitters, painters, carpenters, electricians and operating engineers from this area, from this county, who are out of work and who are perfectly capable of doing this work," said Ed Maher, a spokesman for Local 150 who was on Route 6 on Tuesday.
Company response
LyondellBasell spokesman Aaron Woods said the union demonstration "is totally misdirected and the allegations are unfounded."
Woods said the Netherlands-based company hired 100 vendors to do the scheduled maintenance work and "the vast majority of people are from this area."
Most of the contractors "have local established businesses or use local resources for staffing support," he added. Woods could not name a specific company with local ties.
So far, officials from the global chemical company are not talking to the unions. Union members said they will continue to rally in front of the plant at 8805 Tabler Road in unincorporated Grundy County.
Many of the workers wore union hats, T-shirts and jackets and carried signs that read: Out of State Workers Go Home! Local Jobs for Local People! Buy Local Hire Local!
Drivers in many of the vehicles passing the long line of workers honked their horns or waved to show support.
Taking a stand
Leon Theis, a Teamsters Local 179 member from Morris who was laid off in November, said the jobs are going to people who don't pay taxes in Illinois.
"These are our jobs. Why is it that they can't employ us?" he asked.
It's time for union workers to take a stand, said Brad Peter, an unemployed Local 150 member from Libertyville: "We will be heard, and we will let them know how we feel. Hopefully we can get them to change their minds and start hiring local people and put them back to work."
Caleb Anderson, a Local 150 member from Belvidere, has been out of work for nine months.
"They're bringing people from out of state to do work when it could be me in there working," he said.
Sweeney said many unions are experiencing 30 percent to 50 percent unemployment. His union's food bank feeds 1,500 members a week, he said.
Gary Johnson, secretary treasurer of Teamsters Local 179, said with unemployment in the double digits, local companies should be hiring Illinois workers.
"This is about hiring local people in the community who spend their money here," he said.
Major investment
LyondellBasell's Woods said the company set three criteria for contractors: safety performance; quality skills and experience; and economic value.
Only companies that met all three criteria were hired, he explained.
Woods also stressed that LyondellBasell is making a major investment of "tens of millions of dollars" at the site.
"We believe this is an investment not only in the plant, but in the community," he said.
The maintenance work being done during the planned plant "turn around" guarantees the company will remain viable and a source of high-paying jobs for the area, he added. About 375 people work at the plant during normal operations. The shutdown will last through June.
LyondellBasell, which is the third-largest chemical company in the world, emerged from bankruptcy this month.
Sweeney said workers were laid off during the bankruptcy and the company stopped paying some vendors. That's why LyondellBasell is hiring cheap labor, he said.
"They were bankrupt, and now they're going to try to squeeze what they can out of the company," he said of the company's foreign owners.
While the company was in bankruptcy, it did not pay its 2008 property tax bill of roughly $700,000, said Grundy County Administrator Dan Duffy. But as part of the recently approved bankruptcy settlement, the company will pay the back taxes in installments, he added.
Duffy also said Grundy County officials met with LyondellBasell management Friday to try to get the company to shift some of the maintenance and repair work to area residents.
But Duffy said the conversation "wasn't very fruitful."
LyondellBasell's Morris plant produces plastic resins used to make containers, household products, packaging and toys.
