Ironworkers Sign Maintenance Agreement at OxyVinyls Plant on the Houston Ship Channel

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). The Ironworkers Local Union #84 (Houston, Texas) has recently signed an agreement with onsite evergreen contractor DeJean Companies (Houston, Texas) to perform onsite maintenance activities at OxyVinyls, LP’s (Dallas, Texas) vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) manufacturing plant in Deer Park, Texas. OxyVinyls is a 76/24 joint venture between Occidental Chemical Corporation and The PolyOne Corporation. The contract signing marks the first long-term maintenance agreement signed by the ironworkers union with an industrial client in the Houston Ship Channel area, and culminates a two-year effort to re-energize the union and re-introduce its quality and safe work practices to petrochemical companies. (See related October 6, 2004 news article titled – Local Ironworkers Union Stepping Up Efforts to Regain Houston Ship Channel Petrochemical Construction Market). Currently, there are thirteen ironworkers at OxyVinyl working on constructing and repairing pipe racks, platforms, silo steel, in addition to other structural steel and iron work.

Recently, industrial construction has accounted for a greater share of the ironworker’s union workforce, about 15%, and the remainder is for commercial construction jobs, which in recent years have commanded the majority of the work. The ironworkers have tripled the number of qualified ironworkers assigned to industrial jobs in the last two years. “We have about 500 qualified ironworkers in Local #84, and about 75 of those are working on industrial jobs. In addition to the OxyVinyls job, we’ve got ironworkers at Shell, Chevron, Budweiser, Goodyear, and ConocoPhillips, to name a few,” states Ed Vargocko, Business Manager/Financial Secretary and Treasurer for the Ironworkers Union Local #84.

Privately-owned DeJean Companies is the evergreen contractor for all six OxyVinyls plants on the Houston Ship Channel. DeJean handles engineering and construction management for small capital projects in the $1-2 million range, employing a craft workforce that is typically between 50-100 people for OxyVinyls at all times, including ironworkers, electricians, carpenters, civil crafts. Greg Harrison, Site Superintendent for DeJean said, “Right now, we have around 68 crafts working at all six plants and by July we will be up to around 100.” This summer, OxyVinyls will begin construction on a $100 million modernization of its Pasadena, Texas polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant.

Performance, quality, and safety led to the signing of the agreement between DeJean and the ironworkers. “We are very pleased with the performance of the Ironworkers,” states Mr. Harrison, “The ironworkers are the only union crafts we employ, everybody else is open shop.”

The ironworkers' marketing effort is offered to locals and signatory union contractors across the U.S. and Canada through the Ironworker Management Progressive Action Cooperative Trust (IMPACT), with offices in Washington, D.C. IMPACT Direct allows members online access to Industrial Info's PECWeb Direct industrial project tracking system. “Industrial Info has been instrumental in helping us win this industrial maintenance work on the Houston Ship Channel. The contact names from Industrial Info’s project database have opened many doors that weren’t open to the ironworkers for years. We approached petrochemical companies and asked questions about safety and continuing education through apprenticeship and that’s what got us in the door,” Mr. Vargocko said.

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