Teamsters are breaking barriers in the Construction and Refinery industries
July 5, 2024
Back in September of 2021, Local 87 Construction Division Member Robert Zambrano was dispatched to the Bakersfield Renewable Fuels Project. When he arrived on the jobsite, there was only one Teamster on site. As the job went on, he started to add more brothers to cover Teamsters Local 87’s work scope. Local 87 covers the material warehouse, three material yards and field support services. The warehouse services includes the following: shipping and receiving, stocking shelves, generating order tickets, filling requested orders, offloading and loading trucks, and keeping a live inventory of materials for the warehouse and yards to rebuild the refinery.
“We haven’t had a Teamster Foreman in the past 30 years,” said Zambrano. “In this job alone, we have moved up in the ranks from Teamster to Teamster Foreman to Teamster General Forman, to reaching Teamster Superintendent.”
The field services Teamsters provide are as follows: a crew that coordinates equipment moves, such as cranes and tank cleaning equipment; two fuel trucks that fuel all equipment used in the refinery; two trucks that provide ice/water services to all the crews at the jobsite; two water trucks and a third water truck added in the summer months for dust control and other services. There is also a tractor and two flatbed trailers to transport pipe, vessels and other large materials, and two yard forklifts and one indoor forklift, two vans to transport workers to jobsites and a stakebed truck for a parts runner. The job has grown as big as 30 Teamsters at one time. The Local has also accomplished running its own work under Teamster Supervision for its area. Local 87 members move all types of trailers: fresh air trailers, welding machine trailers, air compressors, and generators. The project is now 21-Teamsters strong at this point. All the Teamsters are cross-trained to cover all the jobs and tasks. The list of Local 87 Teamsters on site: Robert Zambrano, Superintendent; Leonel Pelayo, General Foreman; Sergio Gonzales, Field Foreman; Eduardo Rivera, job steward field support; Preston Thomas, materials and field; Simon Diaz, materials and field support; Jose Ruiz, parts runner, materials, and field support; Ivan Salinas, night shift field support; Daniel Puentes, night shift materials and field support; Jesus Rico, material yards; Fernando Herrera, material yards; Jorge Heredia material yards; Steve Fuentez, field support fuel truck; Jose Soto, field support fuel truck; Daniel Guzman, field support ice/water truck; Armando Terrazas, field support ice/water truck; Reynaldo Rojas, field support stake bed truck; Guillermo Moreno, field support 4k water truck; Arturo Lopez, field support, 2k water truck; Alejandro Cervantes, field support van transportation; and Alvaro Medina, field support van transportation.
