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By JERRY WINKLER and BARBARA BAKER Of The News Staff Although there were conflicting reports of violence at Gulf Oil Co. gates last night, the situation seem calm today. Secretary-treasurer of the Gulf union local, Nelson Edgerly said he had two reports of violence on the Gulf lines. “Some trucker out there had a gun and threatened our pickets with a gun. He ac tually fired a shot, and I called the police,” Edgerly said. Edgerly also said that one of the pickets was run over by a truck and said he had heard the man was taken to an emergency room, but he didn’t have any further details. The license numbers of both the trucks were turned over to the Port Ar thur Police Department, he said. Police report that they heard of no such incidents as of early today, but added that not all the reports had been completed. If shots were fired in an incident at a picket line, said Lt. E.L. Wiley of the in vestigation division, ‘* it probably would have come back to me. A member of the picket committee for the Gulf local reported that he heard of a union member being hit by a truck at the Texaco main gate on Savannah Avenue, but said that he knew of no incidents at Gulf gates. The picket committee member, who asked not be identified, said that he had not seen any incidents at the Gulfway gate as of 11 p.m. Tuesday. He added that truckers were honoring the picket lines and not crossing the line to make deliveries to the plant. A company spokesman said that the gates are open and that if a trucker wishes to cross or honor the line it is up to him. “‘It was a very smooth take over,” Gulf spokesman Jim Gatten said of the change from union workers to supervisory per sonnel working the units in the plant. “We are continuing to produce at the current level of production,’’ Gatten of said of production since the strike with supervisory personnel working in the plant. At Gulf's main gate at the end of Seventh Street, police blocked the en trance until about 6:15 a.m. today when the first picket shift of the second day of the strike began walking the picket line, according to Charles Lovelace, picket sergeant for the shift. “There’s more people going in than usual, ’ Lovelace said. The cars at the main gate were backed up as much as three-quarters of a mile at one time awaiting the shift change. ‘There’s more people in there now than we we re going in,’’ he estimated. The union members at the front gate were in a good mood. “I’ve never seen car pooling like this before,’”’ Lovelace said with a smile. The union member estimated that perhaps 40 percent of the cars entering the plant through that one of Gulf’s three gates were rented cars. Most carried three or four men, believed to be from out of town. Lovelace said there has been no violence or incidents at the picket line at the Gulf front gate. One Port Arthur police car was parked off the street by the front entrance with the cars coming in and out of the plant one at a time through the walking pickets. Police, center, patrol scene outside gate at Texaco refinery
Newspaper Details
Port Arthur News
Port Arthur, Texas, US
Wed, Jan 09, 1980
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Kent S.
USA 26 Jun 2026
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