This post is actually a couple of days overdue.
It’s hard to put into words how good it felt to see those workers walking back into what was once the Conoco refinery in Trainer.
This came just a few months after they walked out of that same plant when Conoco shut it down. Most thought they’d never be going back.
So it was amazing to see so many of them doing just that.
This can only be described as the perfect marriage of a community, unions and public officials coming together to rally around a common theme – jobs.
A lot of people had a hand in the deal that saw Delta Air Lines buy the site from Conoco and set up a subsidiary, Monroe Energy, to run it. And yes, a lot of government entities came up big, including state government and county council.
Our front page quoting a worker probably said it best.
“It’s awesome,” he said.
You can say that again.
Now if only the same could be said of the iconic Sunoco refinery next door in Marcus Hook.
This morning County Council is expected to announce the results of a special study they had done to recommend potential uses for the site.
It likely will not include refining.
That means that whatever goes in there will likely include a lot fewer jobs.
Which makes what happened next door in Trainer even more of a miracle.
We’ve said a lot of times that what was at stake in these refinery fights was no less than a way of life in the county’s lower end.
One look at the faces of those workers heading back into the Monroe plant in Trainer could tell you that.
My guess is that a look at the face of Sunoco workers later today will tell you the same thing.
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