BP Fires 10,000 Cleanup Workers

[kpete]

Source: Mother Jones


BP Fires 10,000 Cleanup Workers

— By Mac McClelland
| Fri Aug. 6, 2010 10:18 AM PDT

New BP CEO Bob Dudley wasn't kidding when he announced last week that it was time for the company to scale back oil-spill cleanup operations. In fact, by the time he'd said that, the responder force had been drawn down by about 25 percent.

On July 13, the Deepwater Horizon Joint Command was reporting 46,000 responders. On July 23, it was down to 30,000, and the numbers have hovered around the low 30s since. Included in this tally are some Coast Guard and National Guard staff, but BP and subcontractors comprise the vast majority. (I've been trying to get the exact breakdown from the Coast Guard for four days, but to no avail, and BP said it didn't have it on hand, though the Coast Guard has told me it just reports BP's numbers.) In Grand Isle, Louisiana, cleanup workers (none of whom can be named; you know this drill by now) say their coworkers were either told to go home for Tropical Storm Bonnie and then never called back or fired in a massive and sudden drug test.

"Friday, the day before Bonnie, they sent a bunch of people home until further notice, and a lot of people didn't get the further notice," one supervisor told me. "Then last week, they shut the whole down. It was 'Piss in a cup or throw your ID in the bucket.' This was a BP drug test, not a company drug test. It's the first time BP tested us."

A BP spokesman told me that all its subcontractors are required to drug test their cleanup employees and allow BP to do random checks itself; it just happened to do one of those checks last week. But the cleanup workers believe the company's motivation was to fire a bunch of people fast. Maybe it's because they're conspiracy theorists. Or maybe it's because the subcontractors had long had openly lax substance-abuse standards. "Most of those people had never been drug tested before," the supervisor told me. "I worked for two different subcontractors that didn't test me." He also pointed out that the local bar's parking lot is nightly full of company cars and drunk guys who drive them; one cleanup worker I talked to had a picture in his phone of beer cans in the cupholders of cleanup vehicles in broad daylight. "They wanted to get rid of people, and drug testing was a good way to do it. I used to supervise 30 guys; now I've got 10."

Read more: http://motherjones.com/rights-stuff/2010/08/bp-cuts-more-10000-oil-spill-cleanup-workers

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And All The Oil Was Raptured Up To Heaven
via:
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2010/08/and-all-oil-was-raptured-up-to-heaven.html

[liberal N proud]

1. With all the oil gone like magic who needs clean up

:sarcasm:

[tomm2thumbs]

2. sounds like a tag line for a new Corexit line of home cleaning products

no doubt available soon at a store nearby, or a latenight/online infomercial

[superconnected]

4. Honestly, the way the drug companies are going - they'll probably try to

have us ingest it.

[roguevalley]

7. get ready, gulf coast. they are leaving you in shit. we know. been

there, done that.

[superconnected]

3. I don't get it. Does Alcohol make you fail a drug test? I've never head of that before.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[jberryhill]

6. In all fairness...

Many of the workers tested positive for some sort of synthetic chemical dispersant in their blood and urine.

It is unclear why the workers were abusing this substance, but that sort of thing just shouldn't be tolerated.

[superconnected]

10. You mean they have corexit in their system and were fired for that!

[jberryhill]

13. Of course! They should be working, not getting high on Corexit /nt

[JDPriestly]

8. Two likely explanations

1) BP's polls show that people have fallen for BP's ad campaigns and, with the exception of those living right on the affected parts of the Gulf, believe that the worst is over, the harm is minor or undone.

2) BP wants the devastating effect to hit those it is laying off and to their families and communities to insure a backlash against Obama and the Democrats in the fall elections.

Obama needs to come down harder on BP. The Coast Guard has cooperated far too readily with BP. Most of all, by not enforcing safety standards in its Gulf operations, BP breached its contract, its lease for the are. BP should be served with whatever is the equivalent of an unlawful detainer and required to pay the cost of its breach of contract.

[Arctic Dave]

9. Cattle call drug test has always been a cornerstone of BP's way to

cut employees from the payroll. When ever times get slow in the oilfield they will call in about two to three hundred people at a time a piss test them. Those who fail get terminated and BP doesn't have to pay unemployment benefits.

[Earth_First]

11. Well sure, the WH released this week that almost all of the oil has been raptured...

Amazing isn't it.

The spill that was four times the size of the Exxon Valdez has been cleand up in nearly 1/3 the time...

I smell bonuses for the top level executives...

[onethatcares]

12. If this is anything like Katrina, good luck finding who has your paycheck

those boys have already shredded all the applications and left you thinking you made some money.