The United Steelworkers Union has called a strike at refineries accounting for about 10% of refining capacity in the United States.  The USW has organized refinery workers, having driven down employment in the steel industry to a fraction of what it once was.  For a couple of decades, American steel workers enjoyed wages way above average, but in the end, as steel companies cut back on investment, the old blast furnaces went idle one after the other, and non-union electric furnaces, along with foreign steel companies, took market share away. Before going on strike, the union had rejected four previous contract offers from Shell, which is acting as the lead for the industry as a whole.  Whatever settlement is reached at Shell will serve as the pattern for other refiners, a pattern that has served in other industries like autos and steel (which have also lost major shares of union jobs). The USW is seeking annual pay raises double the size of those in the last...(Read Full Post)