ORGANISING OFFSHORE AND SUBSEA WORKERS

RMT and our sister union the OILC have reported that they can hardly cope with the number of new membership forms that arrive with every post. It is generally accepted that trade unions have failed to organise this important and still dangerous sector since the first oil was found years ago. There has been a decline in health and safety with horrific results. There has also been a relative shortfall in pay and conditions in the UK sector compared to workers doing the same jobs, working in the same conditions in the Norwegian sector. It’s the same oil, it’s the same North Sea but there is a huge difference when you look at the pay and conditions of the two sets of workers. The reason for this is simply a question of organisation. Workers in the Norwegian sector got properly organised and fought some hard struggles in order to win improvements. It’s not true to simply claim that ‘we had Thatcher and they had a more progressive government’. That is just an excuse and completely misses the point. The truth is that Norwegian unions got organised, united the workers and fought hard. That is why things are so different. Importantly, they also remained focused and kept organising in order to retain these conditions. One worker recently made the point that despite the better conditions, “it still only costs the bosses one drop of oil from every barrel”. So with the price of oil hitting all time highs the message is simple; the companies can afford to give the workers more. They have sold workers short in the UK sector for 35 years and unions need to start turning that around. Workers demand to be treated fairly and it is a nonsense to portray reasonable demands as a risk that’s going to ‘wreck the industry’. These workers know they are getting short changed and employers need to see sense and start behaving reasonably to their workforce. There are differences between the UK compared to the Norwegian sector, the most obvious one being the two weeks on, four weeks off rosters in the Norwegian sector compared to two-on two-off in the UK sector. However, union pressure over Working Time legislation – led by OILC – is winning more and more ‘two on/three off deals. There are also huge differences in other conditions where a worker in the Norwegian sector stands to earn thousands of pounds by working one week’s overtime. They get £635 extra per day, so five days would bag you an additional £3,175. That sounds unbelievable to workers in the UK sector but that’s the difference between being unorganised and organised. SUBSEA An area that is growing is the subsea sector where many workers have seen what RMT divers achieved last year as a result of getting organised – a pay deal worth over 45 per cent. Hundreds of subsea workers now belong to RMT and the union is attempting to secure voluntary recognition with the various employers in the light of this massive vote of confidence. RMT needs to build its organisation on every vessel in order to properly represent this group of workers. That means recruiting and getting on-board reps elected and trained. This would be a lot easier if RMT wins recognition. Many employers are finding it hard to hold on to their skilled workers. Some have to go abroad to get ROVs for example and then rely on experienced ROVs to train them on the job. More and more ROVs report a growing pressure of work and increased levels of paper work to add to their misery. So the simple answer is get organised. Alan Pottage of the union’s organising unit explains why workers in the offshore/subsea sector have been joining up in increasing numbers RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: january 2008 :: RMTnews 15 ORGANISING OFFSHORE AND SUBSEA WORKERS