Alaska Pipeline Welding Union Control

All field pipeline welding worldwide is controlled by the Tulsa, Oklahoma union. Automated welding technology was available in 1976 for the Alaska Pipeline; it was built manually instead, and remains manual forty years later. Used to make the point that welder availability/scarcity is sometimes political rather than technical — paralleling the technical scarcity case of aluminum welders in §7.

That's also true in some types of welding of steel, but it's more political in that case. All the pipeline welding in the world is done by a union out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. We still manually weld pipelines — gas pipelines in the field — because if you try to weld them automated you will never build that pipeline. According to the union. It doesn't go in any written contract. It's sort of like, you watch The Godfather, and they make a deal you can't refuse. So the union in Tulsa will make sure everybody knows. They had the technology to do automated welding in 1976 on the Alaskan pipeline. Probably could have come up with better quality than manual welders. They built it manually, and they still do, forty years later, because the Tulsa union is a very powerful union. You will not build a pipeline anywhere in the world, unless you're in the former Soviet Union where that union doesn't have so much power, or China. But in general, you go to Iraq or somewhere you want to build a pipeline, the Tulsa union's got the job. Just so you know there's a little corruption in this country too.

Tulsa Oklahoma welders' union controls field welding contracts on pipelines worldwide. Tom's 1970s Alaskan pipeline anecdote: the union told the oil company CEO they would sabotage automatic welding if introduced. Also covers the American-food union contract requirement and the worker-pays-for-rework custom.

Within the oil business, if you're going to be welding together a pipeline anywhere in the world, there's a union in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and they will get the contract to do the field welding of that pipeline in most places, except maybe China or the Soviet Union — but sometimes in those places too. If it's being built by Shell or Exxon, the union will tell them: you will not see anything built anywhere in the world unless you use our union for this new job in wherever.