On this day in labor history the year was 2005.
That was the day 15 workers were killed and another 170 were seriously injured in an explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas.
Workers were re-starting a unit down for repairs.
As they filled a tower with gasoline, it overflowed, sending a geyser into the air.
The igniting hydrogen vapor cloud created a chain of explosions that destroyed the nearby trailers, housing temporary contract workers.
The explosion shed light on many key problems throughout the industry: the increasing use of contract workers, safety short cuts and qualitative lack of industrial process controls.
A 2007 Chemical Safety Board report found that “years of cost-cutting, poor worker training and a safety culture with “serious deficiencies” left the plant ‘vulnerable to catastrophe,’ but company leaders ignored the warning signs.”
OSHA fined BP $21.3 million and more, but ultimately settled for $13 million.
For years, the catastrophe was studied closely to eliminate the hazards.
But 10 years later, a 2015 joint investigative series by The Texas Tribune and Houston Chronicle found that “there is little evidence that the 15 lives lost on that March day bought much of anything: The death toll at U.S. refineries has barely slowed… At least 64 energy company employees and contractors were killed in the decade before the blast. At least 58 have died in the 10 years since…
The Department of Energy has tracked nearly 350 fires at refineries in the last eight years — almost one every week.
Refinery workers have gone on strike demanding, among other issues, an increased emphasis on safety.”
For the United Steelworkers, it is a daily fight to implement the critical safety actions the union developed in the aftermath of the blast.
October 2 - Rebuilding in Tough Times
October 1 - The Jerry Level
September 30 - The Elaine, Arkansas Massacre
September 29 - Creating a Standing Army
September 28 - Solidarity on the Docks
September 27 - Wreck of the Old ‘97
September 26 - Disaster on the Job Around the Globe
September 25 - Martyred for the Vote
September 24 - Banned in Canada
September 23 - Dr. Harriet Louise Hardy is Born
September 22 - The First Farm Aid
September 21 - Fighting Just to Maintain Standards
September 20 - The Fight for Equality
September 19 - The End of My Sweet Jennie
September 18 - The Atlanta Compromise
September 17 - Striking in the South
September 16 - NHL Managers Lock Out Players
September 15 - The Invergordon Mutiny
September 14 - The Murder of Ella Mae Wiggins
September 13 - Attica!
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