A story by Joe Guillen in the Detroit Free Press raises question about Marathon Petroleum's commitment to hire Detroiters after getting a $175 million tax break to expand its Southwest Detroit plant seven years ago.
The Detroit City Council has raised concerns.
Marathon Petroleum has gone through the motions, the Freep reports. The company created a training program at Henry Ford Community College for Detroit residents in exchange for receiving the $175-million tax break.
The Freep reports that Marathon has added nearly 200 new jobs at its expanded refinery since the expansion, and has paid $154,000 for 37 training-program scholarships for Detroiters. But it has not offered a full-time job to any of the Detroiters.
The Freep cited four people who successfully went through the program and never got the jobs.
One of those folks, Darrell Waller, had previously worked at American Axle & Manufacturing — from which he took a buyout — and had acquired skills from other jobs in the building trades and heating and cooling sector, the Freep reported.
The Freep writes:
But Waller, 45, never got hired at Marathon. Neither did his friend, Raynard Hurst, nor their two classmates in the Marathon program. All of them, however, finished the training in process technology, worked a three-month internship at Marathon’s Detroit refinery and obtained an associate degree from HFCC. The entry-level position they applied for at Marathon required only a high school education.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Waller tells the Freep.
The company said it is policy not to comment on the job offered to graduates of the program and that it tries to hire the qualified workers. -- Allan Lengel
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