By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON (Reuters). -Locked Out Workers at Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE 🙂 will hold a vote at its Beaumont, Texas refinery on Nov. 12, 22 and 23 to determine whether or not to allow the United Steelworkers union to represent them.

According to Exxon and union, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board will mail the ballots to the workers representing USW Local 13243 at the refinery as well as the adjacent lubricants blending/packaging plant. All ballots should be returned no later than Dec. 22.

The petition asking for a decertification vote was signed by at least 30% of those who were locked out of work in the 369,000-barrel-per-day refinery/lubricants facility. This petition was sent to the NLRB in October.

According to officials, about 650 workers had been locked up on May 1, after the deadline expired without any new labor contracts. However, resignations and retirements have brought down that figure to 585. About 500 of those workers are USW members who pay dues.

The union still represents the rest of them under Texas’ right-to-work laws.

The decertification vote will be open to all who are members of the USW.

Following the Oct. 19 rejection of Exxon’s contract proposal, 400 members of union cast their ballots for decertification.

Exxon stated that either the union can adopt the contract, or it will be decertified. This is in response to the start of the lockout which started after the union rejected a contract to eliminate the job seniority.

Exxon would have been given control of staffing for a crude distillation unit. This would increase Beaumont’s capacity to 250,000 barrels/day by 2024. Beaumont is the U.S. largest oil-processing facility in terms of volume.

The NLRB still has not ruled on USW allegations that Exxon supported the campaign to decertify, in violation federal law. The NLRB can seize votes without disclosing the result until it has ruled on the union complaints.

They could still be counted if they are not confiscated by the NLRB before the year ends.