Oil Union Officials Reject Offers Which Meet Carter Guidelines

DENVER--In the first major union test of President Carter's wage-price guidelines, leaders of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic International Union rejected contract offers from 21 companies yesterday.

Contracts covering the 60,000 members of the union expired at midnight Sunday, but the union delayed calling a general strike while it considered a proposal from Amoco.

Although the union instructed workers to report to work yesterday, workers at one Gulf Oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas struck while others honored a picket line in front of an ARCO plant, also in Port Arthur.

A.F. Grospiron, president of the union, said the strike was unauthorized, but was neither illegal nor a wildcat strike since the contract had expired.

Grospiron said the possibility of a nationwide walkout remains "very real." He added that the union's 12-member bargaining policy committee yesterday rejected more than 20 oil company offers that proposed a two-year agreement and percentage increases in each year of the agreement.

The Amoco proposal, still under consideration, is a two-year offer which reportedly calls for a 73-cent-an-hour increase in the first year.

The 73-cent raise would amount to about an 8.3 per cent increase. Carter's voluntary wage-fringe benefit guidelines only allow for a 7 per cent increase over the life of a contract.

If, however, the union agreed to hold its wage increase in the second year to less than 6 per cent, it would bring the contract into compliance with the guidelines.