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Jessica Skalka, 37, rounded the corner of a homemade bar in her dad’s garage, passing a framed collage of cutout newspaper clips marking the end of the 99-day strike at BP’s Whiting, Indiana, refinery in 2015. A row of championship banners for the Chicago Cubs, Bears and White Sox hung high across one wall, while a light-up “Donnie’s Man Cave” sign glowed nearby.
She picked up an empty blue-and-orange Bears-themed bucket from the counter, shook it, and asked, “No candy today?”
“Yeah, well, I’m not working right now,” said Donald Skalka, 62, from across the garage.
Until mid-March, father and daughter worked at BP’s sprawling plant in Whiting, Indiana, the largest inland oil refinery in North America.
There, Donald had spent nearly two decades working his way up to a job in the control room, where he monitored the refinery’s operations from behind a bank of screens. The plant processed approximately 440,000 barrels of crude oil every day, and Donald kept the electricity and steam-generating machinery at the plant running. Donald’s son worked there, too, as did Jessica. Donald met his longtime girlfriend, Renee Pleitner, during his onboarding at the plant. She’s a third-generation refinery worker.
For the last four months, the Skalkas, Pleitner, and approximately 800 other workers represented by United Steelworkers Local 7-1, or USW, have been locked out of the refinery without pay and with no clear indication of when they’ll return to work.
During a lockout, management can prevent workers from returning to their jobs to withhold wages. Lockouts are generally seen as a hardline tactic during labor disputes and tend to be rare, especially in the refining business, which requires continuous production and a highly skilled workforce. Now, longtime refinery workers worry Big Oil is experimenting with a new playbook to break union power, undermine national collective bargaining, and remake its workforce.
BP began negotiating with the union in early January ahead of the previous contract’s expiration at the end of that month. But two months into discussions, after 98 percent of USW Local 7-1 members voted to reject what the fossil fuel company called its last, best, and final offer, the company issued a lockout order. The proposal would have held up wages, cut jobs, and expanded the use of artificial intelligence, according to the union.
In an emailed statement to WBEZ, BP objected to the union’s characterization of its demands. “Our proposals are not unique or novel,” wrote BP spokesperson Cesar Rodriguez. “Most of what we are seeking has already been tested and implemented elsewhere.”
The lockout also “allowed for a safe and orderly transition of operations,” Cesar said. The union’s 24-hour notice requirement to strike and disrupt refinery operations “presented safety and operational risk,” BP wrote in an earlier statement, and necessitated a continuity plan.
For Skalka, the March email notifying him that he wouldn’t be returning to work until further notice was gutting.
“The gamut of emotions when I had to face my family, it was a lot,” he said.
Born and raised in the northwest corner of Indiana, most of Skalka’s family had worked at industrial facilities. His father worked at cement factories and later built parts for the nearby steel mills. An uncle was a shipbuilder on the East Side of Chicago.
Skalka was eventually entrusted with an important role at the refinery. From the control room, he was responsible for identifying broken pumps, mechanical hiccups, and mystery leaks.
“There’s a little bit of danger to it,” he said. “When you swipe in with your time card, you have to bring your A game.”
All the same, he loved the job — and his daughter noticed.
It was an exciting, breakneck-paced lifestyle, and the pay was good. She peppered her dad with questions, took a qualifying test, passed, and eventually earned a spot. Donald Skalka Jr., Skalka’s son, spent approximately a decade working at a nearby steel mill. When an opportunity at the refinery came up a year and a half ago, he took it. It was a decision his father encouraged.
“He’s one of the 800 like the rest of us, and he’s going, ‘Dad, I don’t know if I should’ve listened to you.’ Well, I didn’t know at the time that was going to happen,” Skalka said. “At the time, on paper, everything seemed better; you’re trying to have a better quality of life.”
The lockout has reshaped his home life in other ways too. Jessica found temporary work. Her brother returned to a job at the mill. Donald and Renee are holding out, living on a budget that keeps shrinking. They’ve swapped cable for streaming and are using rabbit-ear antennas for free local channels. They also paid their utility bills months in advance to avoid a power shutoff in the future.
“You get rid of the non-essentials right away,” Skalka said. “The thermostat stays higher, there’s less in the grocery cart, you don’t eat out obviously hardly at all anymore.”
They pass the time filling poster boards with pictures of good times on the picket line. And they aren’t done picketing. Skalka pilots the union’s second-hand minibus, a stout, cream-colored vehicle, shuttling picketing union members between four different entrances. Union members have been assigned shifts to protest — four shifts a day, four protesters a shift. The schedule has allowed workers to find other employment and extend their ability to hold out during the lockout.
Donald goes on his off days too, when Pleitner is on the schedule, and she does the same for him. “We just kind of make it a family event,” Skalka said.
By now, he’s used to the new routine. What he’s still wrapping his head around is a new, more aggressive tack from his employer — one that has pushed his family, friends, and coworkers to their limits.
“This time it seems they’re in a union-breaking mode,” he said, “They’re following a playbook.”
The origin story
Union leaders trace the origins of BP’s strategy to Texas. In 2021, Exxon, the nation’s largest oil and gas company, locked out approximately 650 unionized workers from its Beaumont, Texas, refinery when they rejected a “last, best, and final offer,” which would have frozen wages and ended some union seniority rights. At the time, the Beaumont workers were already operating outside the framework of the National Oil Bargaining Program, an effort dating back to the 1960s to negotiate industry-wide standards for wages, health care, and workplace safety.
The program exerts leverage by aligning approximately 200 refinery bargaining units around the same contract timelines, preventing unions from being pitted against each other, and establishing a national standard. Without that collective leverage, the Beaumont refinery workers were at a disadvantage. The Texas lockout lasted 10 months and ended in March 2022. When workers returned to their jobs, they did so under a weaker contract that gave ExxonMobil authority over job assignments, stripping the union of its previous role in determining a quarter of them.
According to Eric Schultz, president of the USW Local 7-1, BP hired the architect of the Exxon negotiations, Jordan Marcks, as a director of employees and labor relations, while that lockout was ongoing. Schultz sees similarities between BP’s proposal and Exxon’s plan for the Texas refinery. For one, BP is pushing a contract term that would put the Whiting refinery out of step with the National Oil Bargaining Program. It is also looking to eliminate jobs and union oversight.
“They obviously liked that playbook,” he said. “They’re trying to bring that flavor up here to Northwest Indiana,” Schultz added.
When reached for comment about Marcks’ employment history and alleged tactics, a BP spokesperson said the company “does not comment on personnel matters.” Marcks did not respond to a request for comment.
Mike Smith, the chair of the National Oil Bargaining for the United Steelworkers, said it’s not totally clear yet whether the lockouts reflect a new tactic for Big Oil. “Whether this is an individual’s idea who happens to have been involved in both of those lockouts, or if this is a strategy — that’s still to be determined,” he said.
“A good fight on their hands”
With the workers locked out, the squat union hall has transformed into an all-hours crisis center. Makeshift shelves in a corner carry everything from simple groceries like canned food and pasta to diapers and baby formula. The formula and diapers are typically the first to go, according to Michelle O’Shaughnessy, a union member who has been helping run the improvised pantry since the lockout started.
The local community has also rallied behind the refinery workers. “We have some faithful restaurants who are very good to us,” O’Shaughnessy said. Beggars Pizza in Whiting has been dropping off 10 pizzas to the union hall every Monday, as do Aurelios of Hammond on Tuesdays and Center Lounge, which has been bringing in meals on Wednesdays.
Union members can also get help filling out unemployment applications at the center. The union has a strike fund that helps pay some bills, but members do not receive cash payments or salaries. Other organizations have also stepped up to assist with mortgage payments and help apply for SNAP benefits.
While the fight plays out, Skalka is hunkering down, preparing for a long road back to work. He’s not sure when or if he’ll get to put his BP uniform on again. What he does know is that he, his family, his nearly 800 USW brothers and sisters, and the rest of Northwest Indiana are determined to win.
“We’re still going to keep living our lives; it’s not gonna deter the hardworking people in Northwest Indiana,” Skalka said. “They’ve got a good fight on their hands, and we’re gonna give it to them.”