Play Ball! Youth Baseball Players Allowed On Tesoro Refinery Fields As Strike Enters 6th Week

MARTINEZ (CBS SF) – Youth baseball players who were locked out of their normal playing fields at the Tesoro oil refinery in Martinez will be able to begin using the fields on Saturday, the league president said Friday.

Junior Optimist Baseball League President Pattie Behmlander said the United Steelworkers Local 5 signed an agreement with Tesoro management on Thursday to allow the baseball league to begin using the fields again.

"Everyone is thrilled to death," Behmlander said. "Everyone is just really happy about this."

The refinery has been shut down and the fields closed since workers began a strike following the expiration of their contract on Feb. 1.

Some 600 players on 49 teams were forced to share just three fields when they normally play on 18, because 15 of those fields are located on property owned by the Tesoro refinery.

Forcing the teams to share the fields presented not only a logistical headache but a safety hazard, Behmlander said.

The Tesoro facility in Martinez was undergoing a routine shutdown of its refining operations to perform maintenance work at the time the strike started and management made the decision to keep the refining operations idle until the strike ends, according to Tesoro spokeswoman Patricia Deutsche.

Deutsche said the refinery decided to close the fields because they didn't want parents or children to be confronted by picketers at the gates to the baseball field.

Deutsche did not immediately return requests for comment on the new agreement.

Tracy Scott, a member of the United Steelworkers Local 5, which represents workers at the Tesoro refinery, said the union was never picketing at the gate to the baseball field and never intended to picket there. The union had been demonstrating outside the refinery's main gate, Scott said.

"It was kind of a silly issue and it didn't need to happen," Scott said.

Scott said he approached the refinery's management last week about the fields and they sent back a legal agreement requiring the union to stay away from the gate to the baseball field.

"It was a waste of my time and I'm sure a waste of theirs," Scott said. "We never had a problem in the first place."

The union is negotiating a contract that addresses worker fatigue, the use of contract laborers, healthcare and other issues, Scott said.

He said local negotiating teams will meet with management on Wednesday and national USW negotiating teams will meet with representatives from the oil industry on Monday to resume talks.

Behmlander said baseball league members are working at the baseball fields today to prepare it for practice. The baseball players will return to the fields on Saturday to resume playing ball.

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