WHITING, Indiana – Elizabeth Piña has been at her union hall since 4 a.m., checking on picketers, organizing the food pantry, and chatting with her coworkers. She is wearing a black T-shirt and sitting behind a table filled with schedules and stickers that say “end the lockout.” She hasn’t “had much of a summer,” she tells me; it’s been dominated by the early-morning shift, Monday through Friday. When I ask her if she is tired, she says, “Nope. We’re just starting.”
This is a routine that more than 800 workers didn’t choose. British Petroleum, one of the ten largest oil and gas companies on Earth, kicked out its workforce at this crude oil refinery, which at its peak produces 440,000 barrels a day, on March 19. The previous contract expired in January, and United Steelworkers Local 7-1 declined management proposals that workers say would existentially threaten the local. The union has been locked out for 126 days, and it says it is fighting for its survival against an employer that wants to cut pay and jobs, undermine workers’ ability to strike, and tear the local away from national bargaining.
The lockout is illegal, the union says. By late May, United Steelworkers (USW) had filed 15 unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that the company is refusing to bargain in good faith and using threats, coercive statements, and surveillance.
The fight has become a test of endurance. On one side are workers who are not receiving the equivalent of strike pay (though members can ask for help from an assistance fund financed by USW). On the other side is an oil company that brought in $189.2 billion in revenue in 2025, and counts among its activist shareholders Elliott Investment Management, run by Paul Singer, a prominent Trump supporter known for slashing jobs and subcontracting labor. The company is sending in replacement workers, referred to derisively by workers as “scabs.”
The fight has become a test of endurance.
“Clearly they didn’t lock us out with the intent to reach a deal anytime soon, or to try to find something that was good for both parties,” Eric Schultz, the president of USW Local 7-1, tells me at the union hall. “They locked us out with their intent to starve us out. Obviously you don’t starve people out in a month, you don’t starve them out in two months. This is a long game for them, and we’re prepared for it.”
The reference to starving is not a metaphor. Numerous people I met told me it has been difficult to make ends meet. Many who applied are now getting unemployment, but that comes to less than $400 a week, and some workers with large families to feed are relying on donations to the food pantry. Michelle O’Shaughnessy, a locked-out operator who coordinates food, transportation, and the union hall schedule, tells me that several union members have had babies during the lockout, so she has been stocking the pantry with diapers and formula, which families have been coming to pick up.
Joe Trevino is standing on the side of a busy road in front of a tank field, holding a picket sign that says “Illegal Lockout” as a baseball cap and sunglasses shade his face from the sun. He works as a process operator, a job he describes as “labor intensive,” and has been at the refinery for 19 years. In June, his house was destroyed by a tornado. “I’m living in a hotel right now,” he says. “I’m dealing with all that stuff, plus not having a paycheck come in, and nobody from this company has reached out to me to see if I’m okay, to check on my well-being. Nothing.” (It’s a tragic reality that companies like BP are also driving climate change, which causes more powerful tornadoes and larger clusters of them.)
Trevino has been doing regular shifts at the picket line, despite the personal tragedy. He started receiving unemployment in late May, he says, but it’s under $400 a week. “Things were tight before, now they’re even tighter… I saved up, so I had a nice chunk of change going into this, but that is only going to last me so long, especially with everything else I got going on.”
Workers say BP is trying to use the bargaining process to take away their power as a union. The company wants what it calls an “industrial peace clause,” which would require 150 days’ notice before a strike or lockout following contract expiration, a dramatic increase from the current 24-hour notice. Workers worry that such a long delay would allow the company to undermine a work stoppage before it begins, and would limit workers’ ability to urgently strike when needed. Without the full power of the strike, workers have little leverage to protect their rights and defend the bargaining unit, union members told me.
The inclusion of management rights provisions throughout the contract, meanwhile, was a giant red flag. “You really have to understand the contract language, but they’ve done a lot of disclaimers about how they’ll hold the sole exclusive right to make modifications in the future,” Schultz says.
Without the full power of the strike, workers have little leverage to protect their rights.
USW members in oil and gas do pattern bargaining, which is when the union bargains with the oil and gas industry through a single employer, which sets the pattern on national issues, like wages, health, and safety. (The employer doing the bargaining can change from cycle to cycle.) It’s an approach to bargaining that lets union members at different companies band together, giving them more leverage and unity against multi-billion-dollar companies. Alongside national contracts, workers also bargain at the local level over location-specific issues.
Local 7-1 represents the last unionized BP refinery in the United States, and the only BP refinery involved in pattern bargaining, though smaller groups of BP pipeline workers adhere to some aspects of pattern bargaining. But according to the union, from the outset of this cycle, the company said it was refusing to recognize pattern bargaining, and wanted a contract that is six years long, instead of four, which would get workers off the plan. The local views the attempt as an effort to isolate them, and further strip the union of its power.
In an email to Workday Magazine and the Prospect, BP spokesperson Cesar Rodriguez said the company is pursuing “modernized job structures, training, and upskilling.” But workers say this is just code for greater disposability and degraded conditions, and they declare a new pay progression would make it easier for BP to fire people and harder for workers to get to the highest rates of pay. They’re also concerned about the proposed loss of dozens of jobs from the bargaining unit. (At one point, the company proposed cutting 200 jobs, or a quarter of the bargaining unit, according to Schultz.)
Rodriguez emphasized BP’s support for a 13 percent pay increase over four years. But according to an email from the USW 7-1 board of directors to members on May 22, base wages would be reduced for most classifications of workers, and the raises would not kick in until the base rate catches up to the current wage.
Under the company’s proposal, Brian, a fifth year operator who asked me to use only his first name to protect his privacy, would be reclassified as an operating tech 3, a change that would come with a base wage cut of $1.82 per hour, according to a USW analysis. “They are advertising that we would see increases, but it is not based on what our current wages are, so it’s very misleading,” Brian told me.
BP is backing “a $2,500 ratification bonus and additional $5,000 to $7,500 payments for employees in certain job classifications,” Rodriguez told me. But the USW 7-1 board of directors said that “they do not explain what they want in exchange for that payment … Temporary payment does not make up for permanent wage cuts, lost jobs, reduced rights, and weakened seniority protections.”
On March 2, management presented the local with their “last, best, and final offer,” and the union membership voted it down. A revised settlement was offered the next day, but it, too, was rejected. On March 17, the union gave a counteroffer. “Just four hours later, the company rejected our counterproposal, issued notice of the cancellation of rolling extensions, and a notice of intent to lock us out of our jobs, effective at midnight on March 18,” according to USW.
Piña says that when she showed up for work on March 18, “We were told we were gonna get locked out. Everyone had to hurry up, get their stuff together, whatever personal stuff they could carry with them. If you couldn’t carry out your personal stuff, then you left it behind.” The lockout officially began at midnight on March 19, she says. “They had replacement workers with allegedly training hours, but you could tell in their faces they didn’t know what they were doing.”
Workers are not paid for picketing, yet they have been showing up four months after the lockout began. One electrician who was severely burned over 90 percent of his body while working at the refinery several years ago has been on the picket lines regularly, three different people told me.
In many cases, picketing is a family affair. I met Lety Tirado while she held a picket sign next to a giant inflatable “Scabby the rat” perched in front of a tank field. She doesn’t work at the refinery, but her husband, Pedro Tirado, has for 19 years. “We were here for the 2015 strike, and now we’re here for the lockout this year,” she says, speaking loudly so that I can hear her over the hum of the busy road.
One of their kids graduated from high school during the lockout, and it was tough to throw a party amid financial stress. “It definitely changes your perspective,” she says. “Am I going on a random Thursday to the movies? Probably not. Things that you’re accustomed to doing with your kids, you’re like, ‘I don’t think I’m spending that 100 bucks there.’”
Workers are acutely aware that part of the battle is to plan for the inevitable grinding down of one’s body. “What people need to understand is, unfortunately, this type of job that we have, it is in a time frame,” Piña, 34, says. “People do develop health issues in there, so the good money we make is eventually used on medical. Just like the equipment in there breaks down, we do too.” That only heightens the need to make the most of bargaining for decent wages.
“Where else are you going to climb 50 or 60 feet up in the air with a hose? Where else are you going to be breathing under a [self-contained breathing apparatus] for half an hour or an hour, or while doing other physical activity?” Piña says.
The mood at the union hall is one of a community hunkering down for a long fight. When I asked Schultz whether he thinks the company is trying to take advantage of the Trump National Labor Relations Board in order to break the union’s power for good, he tells me, “I think the stars aligned, but I think this plan was put in place well before Trump was elected.” Jordan Marcks, a management-side labor relations professional, previously played a role in overseeing the 10-month lockout of Exxon workers in Beaumont, Texas in 2021 and 2022, according to USW. Workers told me that Marcks is now BP’s “people and culture, employee and industrial relations director for the Americas,” and sat on BP’s side of the bargaining table for a few sessions.
BP did not respond by deadline to a request to comment on the role of Marcks, but the company did issue a general statement, via its spokesperson Rodriguez. “We’ve repeatedly asked union leadership to come back to the negotiating table so discussions can continue,” Rodriguez told me over email. “The company remains ready and willing to keep talking through the issues that separate the parties and bargain in good faith to reach an agreement. Unfortunately, the union president or elected representatives’ continued lack of response to meeting requests is slowing down constructive dialogue on these issues.”
But USW District 7 Director Mike Millsap told me that the “bargaining team has met with British Petroleum management dozens of times, only for the company to push the same proposals that eliminate local jobs, force hundreds of workers to take pay freezes and cuts, and break down bargaining and seniority rights that generations of union members fought for. More than 98 percent of our members rejected those concessions. Yet the company hasn’t meaningfully moved or considered our proposals. We want to engage in real, good-faith negotiations, not more PR theater.”
There are signs of public support for the workers. The Lake County Council passed a resolution on July 14, in a 6-0 vote, calling on BP to end the lockout and resume negotiations in good faith. Several other nearby municipalities, including Schererville, have passed resolutions that were similarly supportive of the workers. The City of Hammond recently rejected British Petroleum’s sponsorship of its 2026 Festival of the Lakes, with the mayor saying it “certainly sends the wrong message.” Other unions have visited the local and walked the picket lines, among them the Chicago Teachers Union.
I asked Carolina Ramsey, a representative for USW 7-1 and a worker at a lab in the Whiting facility, what the union’s strategy is to win against the company. “We are basically just trying to continue on the support from the community and other locals,” she says. “That’s what helps out all of our members is that support system—seeing that other people are coming and backing us, so that they’re not going to be demoralized.”
On the personal level, survival tactics vary from person to person. Piña’s 16-year-old son “doesn’t ask me for anything,” she says. “As soon as we got locked out, I told him this is what it is, and he understood. So he’s scraping by, too, and not doing fun stuff, and he’s not having any summer at all. But he already knows how life is, and he understands.”
This article is a joint publication of The American Prospect and Workday Magazine, a nonprofit newsroom devoted to holding the powerful accountable through the perspective of workers.
