Only one of the 15 refineries/chem plants on strike actually stopped production. That is the Tesoro’s Martinez refinery in California and it was half down for other work already.
I believe the strikes to be part of a belated reaction to the heavy inflation of the past decade. The.5% claimed by the government is bogus. The prices we pay have reflected much more inflation than that, probably closer to 7% or so, In an inflation the price of labor rises last and labor has not risen since 2008. We got out of the habit of large industrial strikes in the Reagan boom and they were slow to begin in the collapse, but they are happening now and will probably proliferate. Workers are feeling harassed as their incomes buy less and less. They finally strike. That is one benefit, perhaps the only one, of the existence of unions in the major industries. They are another canary in that coal mine. They strike when they feel the pinch no matter who is in the White house.