A great night for refinery workers - and newspaper folks, too

I’ve been pretty lucky over the years to collect a few journalism prizes. Most of them are handed out by media organizations.

None of them meant as much as the award I got Saturday night.

It was my pleasure to join staff writer Kathleen Carey at the United Steelworkers Local 10-1’s Jim McHugh Memorial Awards Night and Celebration Dinner.

They had a lot to celebrate.

For starters, they’re still in business. More than 600 jobs were at stake when then-Sunoco CEO Lynn Elsenhans announced the company’s intention to get out of the money-losing refining business and seek buyers for both the Marcus Hook and South Philadelphia refineries. She vowed that if a buyer did not come forward, both facilities would be shuttered.

What happened over the next 10 months can only be described in the words of Local 10-1 President Jim Savage. It was one of the first things he told me the very first time I met him when I traveled to the union hall in Linwood to do our ‘Live From the Newsroom’ show to detail the plight of refinery workers and what they were planning to do to fight for their jobs.

I have to admit I was among those who had my doubts. I didn’t give them much of a chance. Savage never blinked. "Nothing is impossible," he told me.

I wasn't so sure. Over the next 10 months Savage had more than his share of low moments. But he never gave up. He rallied the workers. He want to Harrisburg. And to Washington, D.C.

He put a full-court press on public officials, like Gov. Tom Corbett, and U.S Reps. Pat Meehan and Bob Brady.

It would have been easy, in particular after walking out of a meeting with Energy Department officials when things looked bleak, to throw in the towel. Savage never blinked..

And he won.

Today the Sunoco refinery in South Philadelphia lives on under the aegis of Philadelphia Energy Solutions, a joint effort of Sunoco and the private equity firm The Carlyle Group. Many of the men and women who walk into the plant every day live here in Delaware County.

It was a long, grueling process. As Savage admits, for eight those 10 months almost everything that happened consisted of bad news.

But he refused to surrender.

Saturday night it was time to celebrate.

I got an inkling of what was to come when I walked into the IATSE Ballroom in South Philly and picked up a program. On the cover was a shot taken by our staff photographer Julia Wilkinson of the rally and march by union workers held last spring in Marcus Hook. Right there in the middle, carrying a United States flag, is Jim Savage.

I knew that Jim had asked for a copy of the photo to use on the program cover. I jumped at the chance to help out. What I wasn’t expecting was what I saw when I opened the program. There were no less than 18 front pages of the Daily Times, stories we covered in the year from the time Sunoco announced it was getting out, to the official announcement of the Philadelphia Energy Solutions deal.

It was a great night.

Meehan was there. So was Brady, who had the distinct honor of receiving an award named for him. Yes, Bob Brady was the winner of the first Bob Brady Working Class Hero Award. I can’t think of a better choice. This deal doesn’t happen without him; that plant is not operating today without Brady’s input.

In fact, can you think of a single labor impasse or significant breakthrough that does not have Brady’s fingerprints all over it.

I had to admit I was a little taken aback when Barbara Rahke, the executive director of Philaposh, the non-profit worker safety organization, stepped up to the mike to announce the first winner of the Barbara Rahke Community Ally Award.

I was there, along with reporter Kathleen Carey, to accept the award on behalf of the Daily Times.

I’ve never received a higher honor in the 30 years I’ve been in this racket.

To me, it strikes at the heart of what we do, which is community journalism. It did not take long after the Sunoco announcement, followed a couple weeks later by a similar one from the folks at ConocoPhillips concerning their refinery in Trainer, to see what was at stake. It was bigger than any plant, or jobs.

What was at stake was a way of life, the ticket to a solid middle-class life to generations of residents in the lower end of Delaware County. It was in danger of going away. Forever.

Most of the credit for this award goes to Carey. I asked her only one thing when we made the commitment to dive into this story. I asked her to own it. Over the next 10 months, she did exactly that.

I’d like to think this newspaper played a small role in saving that way of life. It’s the reason we come in here every day. The odds were stacked against refinery workers. They needed a voice.

I hope we gave them one.

Savage was right.

Nothing is impossible.

I was reminded of that again on Saturday night.

My deepest thanks to all involved.

 

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