Oct. 18, 2002 – Sen. Norman Jn Baptiste said he "summarily dismissed" an Oct. 7 letter distributed throughout the 24th Legislature by Hovensa Vice President Alex Moorhead in response to the body's resolution that the governor appoint a task force to look into employment issues at the refinery.
The Senate overwhelmingly approved the resolution, with all but Sen. Adelbert Bryan voting in favor.
Jn Baptiste, in a letter sent Wednesday to Gov. Charles W. Turnbull, requested that the governor move expeditiously in appointing the task force in light of layoffs at the company. More than 800 Hovensa and subcontractor employees were furloughed over insurance issues. Most have since returned to work, but some remain jobless.
"My office has been inundated with constituents who are experiencing extreme financial and emotional hardships as a result of being unemployed," Jn Baptiste said.
The senator said "extenuating factors" such as the global oil market and local insurance crises has contributed to the situation. He noted that some employees were laid off for failure to pass a "safety comprehension test" administered by subcontractors, even though for years they had satisfactorily performed their jobs.
"Nevertheless, it is imperative that we move beyond the blame game, in that many residents of St. Croix are without work with no prospect of employment in sight, and are confronted daily with the probability of losing all that they have worked hard to attain," said Jn Baptiste.
Though Turnbull had 30 days from the passage of the Aug. 28 petition to appoint the task force, Government House remains quiet on the issue, he said.
Moorhead's letter said the Senate resolution made an unfavorable judgment of the company before any investigation and without giving Hovensa an opportunity to respond.
The resolution stated that "The Legislature of the Virgin Islands strongly deplores and condemns any employment policy or practice by Hovensa and/or its affiliate contractors which violates the provisions of the (Hess) agreement and which may be unfair or disadvantageous to local residents."
Moorhead called the statement a "totally baseless and unsubstantiated assertion." Hovensa has no objection to the Legislature's request for an investigation into its employment practices, he said, "However, how can such an investigation proceed in an objective and impartial manner when it is the result of a resolution containing grossly inaccurate statements about our company that, essentially, prejudge the issue?"
He focused his criticism in particular on the Senate's allegations about employee testing, hiring off-island employees in lieu of locals, and laying off long-term employees without retirement or benefits.
Moorhead said off-island employees are hired only when there is a shortage of qualified craftsmen for major construction projects or large turnaround of process units, and maintained that they are not displacing long-term contractor-employees.
The contractors offer two types of retirement plans, he said. "Even if that were not the case, the lack of a retirement plan should be no justification for an investigation, because that condition does not constitute a violation of federal or Virgin Islands law."
Moorhead said Hovensa does not administer the comprehension tests to its own employees, but that all employees of subcontractors are tested as a provision of the companies' contracts with Hovensa.
"The safety comprehension test does not attempt to determine a person's job knowledge or knowledge of safety regulations," Moorhead said. "Instead, it tests a person's ability to read and understand safety materials, and all prospective and incumbent employees of our maintenance contractors are required to pass this test, regardless of where they were domiciled at the time that they were considered for hiring."
Moorhead said the agreement with the maintenance contractors stipulates that prospective employees who fail the test will not be employed on refinery grounds. He said some current employees of the contractors were hired before the test was implemented and subsequently failed it.
He said regulations of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) require the operator of a refinery to post warning signs, use safety labels and ensure workers understand precautions and safety hazards.
"It is our company's judgment that, although these contractor-employees have years of work experience in the refinery, they cannot read at a sufficiently high grade level to understand the safety material," Moorhead said.
In response, he said, the company and a workers' union have sponsored remedial reading courses and encouraged incumbent employees who failed the test to take those courses.
Prospective employees began taking the tests, he said, sometime before 1998, when Hovensa was formed from Hess and Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. He said the company began offering the remedial programs before that time as well.
Subsequently, he said, some workers passed the test while others dropped out of the courses, which are still being offered.
"Some have expressed the sentiment that they are too old to learn to read," Moorhead said. "Some have failed to take the courses, whether because of embarrassment or the belief that they should be allowed to continue working in the refinery based on their tenure as workers in the facility."
Moorhead said the problem cannot be ignored, "if for no other reason, because of the fact that the longer that we allow maintenance workers who cannot read safety material to continue working in the refinery, the more likely that an incident will occur in which a worker causes injury to himself or a co-worker."
Therefore, Hovensa has begun setting deadlines for maintenance contractors to comply with testing standards for all their incumbent employees, Moorhead said.
But Jn Baptiste said there appeared to be contradictions in Moorhead's letter and the company could do more to train current employees to pass the comprehension test.
He said it was standard practice in every industry to "grandfather in" existing employees, and in an attempt to do so, those workers should have been given a training program well in advance of the requirements.
"If Mr. Moorhead says such a training program existed, I would tell him that's not true. It was offered only after the employees had taken the test and failed," Jn Baptiste said.
He said a Senate measure that would have taken away companies' tax benefits for firing an employee without training him acted as a catalyst for stepping up the training programs. The governor vetoed that legislation.
Jn Baptiste said reports to his office from former refinery employees show contradictions in Moorhead's statement.
"It's my understanding that individuals hired from the mainland are not given the test," Jn Baptiste said. "It is within my prerogative as a senator to call for a task force to look into such allegations.
"We have to be sensitive to the needs of the workers at the refinery," he said. "But to simply arbitrarily administer tests without providing training – that test has been administered from last year and perhaps before that."
He said he does not believe the Senate resolution was biased against the refinery. "Mr. Moorhead has taken a myopic view of the resolution and to some extent viewed it from a very limited perspective."
Working toward a resolution beneficial to all parties regarding labor issues at the refinery is the goal, Jn Baptiste said.
Neither Jn Baptiste nor Moorhead could say just how many workers have been laid off at the refinery. Moorhead said the company is researching the matter, as well as the "several assumptions" made in Jn Baptiste's letter to the governor.
Calls to Government House thi
s week were not returned.
The governor noted recently that the local business sector "is currently undergoing various hardships resulting from numerous causes." He said government must maintain "a delicate balance … to ensure that the business sector receives fair treatment and likewise that employees are fairly treated."
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