The Hollywood Slicky has ruined the whole energy industry in California. On a personal level, thousands of lives and families have been. Harmed. In this case, 25% could not get a job. And, the remaining 75% that lost their oil jobs got a pay cut on average of 24%. Any wonder productive people are leaving the State—for their own survival. Sadly, California will not survive. The whole State will become San Fran.
“A year after the layoffs, three out of four of those former Marathon workers found new work, according to the UC Berkeley report, but not without a cost.
Many workers said they had trouble finding jobs that matched their skills, citing the lack of a certification process and employers’ lack of knowledge about refinery work.
Few have been able to secure jobs at the same wages they were paid in their unionized roles at the refinery. On average, the workers are earning 24% less in their new jobs, according to the report.”
After a California refinery closed, laid-off fossil fuel workers got hit with a ‘gut punch’
Maggie Angst, Yahoo News, 4/27/23 https://news.yahoo.com/california-refinery-closure-laid-off-120000833.html
Californian’s fossil fuel workforce has long contended that the state’s policies for transitioning away from fossil fuels would create financial hardships for thousands of workers who helped build the state’s oil and gas energy systems.
A new report released Wednesday by the UC Berkeley Labor Center provides a compelling case study to validate their concerns.
The report, which draws on a survey of 140 workers who were laid off when Marathon’s Martinez oil refinery shut down in 2020, exposes the range of challenges fossil fuel workers face as the state transitions away from oil and gas to an economy built on clean energy. It also offers an array of recommendations to address the issues, including financial support, job search assistance and a certification process to help refinery workers validate their skills.
“We know that the clean transition is coming and we need to be prepared,” said Virginia Parks, report co-author and a UC Irvine professor. “It’s too late for many of these workers who were at Marathon — and that’s devastating. But we need to start readying others for the transition before their jobs disappear.”
Experts agree that drastically reducing reliance on fossil fuels will help improve California’s shot of meeting its ambitious climate goals and significantly curb greenhouse gas emissions. But they also acknowledge there will inevitably be trade-offs — from loss of jobs to a decrease in taxes to slumped economic activity in communities that rely on the oil industry.
State leaders so far have not developed a comprehensive plan on how to limit such fallout.
A California refinery closure causes hundreds of layoffs
In the fall of 2020, Marathon laid off 345 permanent workers at its Martinez refinery, as well as about as many contract and management employees. Most of them lost high-paying, union jobs that they thought they would hold until retirement.
Tracy Scott, president of United Steelworkers Local 5, which represented 345 of the approximately 700 workers laid off at the facility, called it a “gut punch.”
“As a local union rep, we were faced with needing resources that we didn’t have the capacity to provide for our members, and there were a lot of gaps in our ability to help them,” Scott said, pointing to workers’ needs around filing unemployment insurance claims and transitioning health care plans.
The facility is now in the process of converting into a renewable diesel processing plant, but the company shuttered its oil refining operation while it awaited permits and other approvals.
A year after the layoffs, three out of four of those former Marathon workers found new work, according to the UC Berkeley report, but not without a cost.
Many workers said they had trouble finding jobs that matched their skills, citing the lack of a certification process and employers’ lack of knowledge about refinery work.
Few have been able to secure jobs at the same wages they were paid in their unionized roles at the refinery. On average, the workers are earning 24% less in their new jobs, according to the report.
One-third of the workers surveyed said they were “falling behind financially” a year post-layoff, compared to just 3% prior to losing their jobs. Nearly a third of the workers took early withdrawals from their retirement accounts to make ends meet after the layoff, the report said.
Scott said he hopes state leaders will take into account the report’s finding and make sure more workers aren’t left behind as it continues to move away from fossil fuels.
“When a state or a nation changes its outlook on policy and or the future of an energy source, I think they should do so in a way that it’s not on the backs of the people who have committed their whole lives to this,” he said. “We can do better.”
Finding assistance for oil and gas workers
Oil industry advocates and policy researchers in recent years have increasingly called for financial assistance and training programs for oil and gas workers transitioning to careers in other sectors. It’s a policy referred to as a “just transition.”
California’s 2022-23 budget established a $40 million oil and gas workforce displacement fund, as well as a $20 million pilot program for training displaced oil and gas workers in Kern and Los Angeles counties to help cap abandoned wells. The state can allocate the program funding through the 2024-25 fiscal year, when the program is set to expire.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has not indicated yet that he has plans to expand that program. Daniel Villasenor, a spokesperson for the governor, previously said it was a possibility but the governor first wanted to “make sure the money is being used effectively.”
Although the two programs mark a starting point for a ‘just transition,’ the industry and researchers say that more is needed.
A 2022 analysis from the nonpartisan think tank Gender Equity Policy Institute estimated that providing income subsidies and relocation support for oil and gas workers who needed assistance would cost the state of California up to $68.9 million annually. Comparatively, a 2021 study from the Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst estimated that assistance programs for California’s fossil fuel workers would cost the state up to $830 million per year.
The Newsom administration recently put $1 billion toward creating more clean energy jobs and economic opportunities.
But there are not currently enough clean energy jobs to absorb the magnitude of the state’s at-risk fossil fuel workers.
Those jobs are also likely to pay less than those in the oil and gas industry. Fossil fuel jobs pay an average of $130,000 while solar industry workers earn an average salary of $97,000, according to a 2021 labor-funded just transition report.
“In the aggregate, there are going to be many jobs created in the clean energy economy and supply chain,” said Jessie Hammerling, a researcher with the UC Berkeley Labor Center. “But the real critical challenge to get right is to make sure that they are good union jobs that pay comparable wages with similar benefits and job quality to the fossil fuel jobs that are at risk here.”
